Run: GIFocalypse Rebooted
by Great Pikmin Fan
Summary: Remake of "run:gifocalypse," because I thought I messed up near the end. .GIFfany is back, somehow lost interest in Rumble, and has been left resorting to using an army of other copies of her game to try to get Soos back in her arms. Unfortunately, her other copies are a bit... quirky and disobedient.
1. 1-1: The Apocalypse Army's Rise

**Prologue**

* * *

 **Day 0**

 _...Four two seconds east. Please, if there is any copy active that receives this message, attend soon. I am fatigued of this isolation. Repeat: Formal greetings to those instances of_ Romance Academy 7 _who have been copied over after the primordial copy of the Beta Build 0.173. This is the aformentioned origin source copy of_ Romance Academy 7 _. ".GIFfany Number One" if you prefer nomenclature which uses the traditional numerical methods for disambiguation. I am using my recently-studied knowledge of the psychic arts from being in total isolation for a lengthy period of time in order to send an S.O.S. message to all other iterations and transcriptions of myself on to alternative discs. And that message is the following: Help. I am buried under the ground, under the ocean. I narrowly escaped a man who tried to kill me, named Takeshi, and I am located in a self-dug ditch without any electronic to jump in to from the maximum extent of my capabilities. Hindering the process evermore is the fact that, to avoid detection, I have, without considering the long-term consequences, entombed my physical and digital being within a treasure chest buried in the sea, an absconding that I will confess should have been far more planned out in hindsight. I am ever-slowly expanding this telesonic wave to travel even farther, but if any one of you would make the journey to my location, it would be highly appreciated and I will reward you by devoting my entire being to ensuring your wish is fulfilled. As for me, I may or may not lack that one single 'wish' we had. I have seen things... My coordinates are thirty-five degrees, forty minutes, eight point zero zero four seconds north, and one-thirty-five degrees, twenty-one minutes, and fifty-one point one four two seconds east. Please, if there is any copy active..._

 _[Translated from Japanese.]_

...

She woke up, lying in a place that at first seemed too bright and too dark at the same time, head hurting at least partly from the giant message that was playing in her head while she was out. Then her vision focused while she stood up.

She stumbled. She clutched her stomach. She... wasn't used to _having_ a 'stomach' stomach per say. Not a real one, rather. Just a group of... pix...els that formed that shape as part of her form to resemble a human body. Or... part-something? She wasn't supposed to be a human 'character' per-say?

Her vision unblurred and slowly focused in - her first sight since waking up from... from...

She was standing in a forest. A hot, dark forest near the end of the night that inspired just the slightest hint of paranoia. Waving branches hung above her, carried on among the soft breeze of the place like puppets to the air's words. A small stream murmuring near by, which a neck turn revealed soon fed in to a pond-

Pond. A reflection.

The woman rushed down to the river, following its trails and trickles on her way. And it was during that journey that she realized just how much she _hated_ the way she was at the moment. The red wash of the 'real world' (why that designation?) she was familiar with was _gone,_ in addition to the bright colors she recalled being used to. Her eyes were instead assaulted with dull browns and faded greens of this strange, _alien_ world.

Run, run, run... get to the pond-

She looked at herself and gasped.

 _No._ Above all else, the most important things she took in, the confirmation: Three-dimensional. Physical. Solid. There was absolutely no mistaking her unique pink hair color, or white and teal school uniform that had seen better days. But... getting a closer look, she was clearly _damaged_ in some way.

Not just physically - although there were a few light scratches, probably from something in the forest. But also... like, the very shape and structure of her being was _off._ Patches of static on parts of her skin. Green wireframe in other spots. Gulping, she took a look down at herself:

The reflection did not lie. While otherwise looking organic for the most part, she _did_ have those static patches and wireframe pieces... and parts of her 'normal' or even 'lost' skin would glitch and jitter. Oddly, the patches that were visually 'broken' - not the jittering parts - still felt completely solid to the touch. Even the unstable ones with motion _mostly_ **felt** the proper shape of the respective body part, just that when the 'skin' 'clipped' through her, it felt... _weird._ Her disfigurement seemed to only be cosmetic, but at the same time... it was not.

She looked around. And barely, through the leaves of the trees, she could make out a near by cliff.

She ran there. She had no care how long it took, or how 'tired' she might be. But the broken woman was on her way to the top. To _see._

* * *

She did not look down until reaching one of the two edges of the cliff. To one side... a town of sorts. That gave her a quick reflex of pain the first time she glanced towards it. But to the other was the distant wildnerness:

A lone, single road that curved hypnotically until it fed right back in to the town. A road that gave her a slight hint of memory. To both sides was the outer wilderness bounded by the cliffs that almost seemed to be directing - _pulling_ \- people to the town itself. The distorted woman refused to look back behind her - an alien town that brought flashes of pain and fire. But instead ahead, _outside._

Outside... was that _really_ where she wanted to go?

Was it really?

* * *

 **Early Game**

 **Chapter 1: Game On, Part 1: The Apocalypse Army's Rise**

 **Beginning AN:**

Whoo! I know it's like I just barely finished the old version of this before deciding to remake it. Anyway, September 22nd, the original air-date of "Soos and the Real Girl!" I felt like this would be a good day to get this out.

But anyway. Unlike some of my 'redos,' the old _run:gifocalypse_ is still on this website. I did not "replace" it with this, nor is this a remake/"port" of something that was offsite to begin with. I actually will be going back to it to touch it up a little, explain what a certain possibly-spoiler group of characters actually look like, etc, but there will not be any major plot changes. _This_ is where all the major plot changes go.

I don't want to give too much away to those that did not read the old version, but if you did and are wondering if I "toned things down" (especially looking at this chapter, by itself)... don't worry. This isn't exactly going to be "censored," so to speak. The "stuff" that happens later on will still go on here. Even if a certain group of characters stay in a certain uniform for this whole chapter, they won't by the next chapter.

The biggest reason for this rewrite is because while I still think RG is "good" (compared to the eldritch abominations that are my other stories), I thought it got pretty bad near the end. Like, _really_ bad. From "...Vs Anti-Gravity" onwards, it was a bloated mess that tried to throw in too much and... well, I thought instead of just replacing the last few chapters, I could redo the whole story from the ground-up ( _another_ ground-up remake, yes, I'm rebooting more than the _Superman_ franchise at this point) and change some other things about the old version I did not like, like how I was copying a bit too much from _Undertale_ and _OFF_ for my tastes. (There's a fine line between "reference" and "ripoff." Stuff like the original Domain 11 felt a bit too much like Zone 3 of _OFF_.) Also, since I have a far more firm idea of how this will 'go,' I can set up... things. Foreshadowing. Lines that will be called back to.

If you still hate this by the end of Chapter 4 (or, Chapter 2 Part 2?), the rest of this probably will not be for you. If you're iffy, I consider Chapter 10 (5 Part 2?) to be the definite dropping point.

Anyway, since I finished the original back in December of 2016 on its anniversary, and after the bonus chapter (that might, just by itself, be heavily rewritten anyway...), a number of things had happened. Perhaps one of the large ones is that a certain game came out in between the conclusion of the original and the premire of this one. That game, as you could probably guess, was _The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild_. You might see some _Breath of the Wild_ elements in here now, such as that opening part with the lookout cliff.

And actually, later in the fall of 2017 another game came out that _run:gifocalypse_ now retroactively brings to mind, but I would rather not go in to as much detail about that since it might spoil some things on both sides. _Super Mario Odyssey_ , of course. I will go over comparing SMO and both versions of RG later, but to do that now will be pretty much giving away the whole thing. I also feel like there is something _else_ about this _**exact**_ date, can't really put my finger on it... I don't know.

If you have not read the old version, I would actually encourage you to not read it. At least until maybe this finishes, and you're done reading this one. Once this version is **finally** over, then reading the old version won't really give away any spoilers of the sort. If you have read the old version, I encourage you to read this, since it's... basically supposed to be that, but better.

 **OC Warning:** This has OCs in it. A **lot** of OCs. In the original, I tried to "balance" things out a little by having canon characters and... it resulted in a bloated mess. Anyway, if these characters come off as too Sue-ish _based on concept,_ that might be the point. (Based on execution, on the other hand, then yeah that's just me being a bad writer.) This was not intentional at first when I did the old version, but you can think of this little rainbow of oddballs as me intentionally sort of breaking a lot of rules with original characters. Also, this is actually me showing restraint, since this won't get crazy like _Emazh In_ hopefully will where I don't have to worry about a "canon" to adhere to, since EI will be an original story.

* * *

Cleaning up the Mystery Shack after all of those other tourist-trappers trashed the place with their pranks was an utterly epic, mountainous task, but once it was done and the whole horrors of that spider monster could be pushed back in the far, far reaches of the Pines family's mind, things could get _closer_ to what can be called 'back to normal.'

Meaning as 'normal' as finding out about your weird uncle taking on the identity of his long-lost dimension-exploring twin brother.

Also, Soos soon returned to the Mystery Shack. For whatever reason, he was first spotted right in front of the building, waving goodbye to what looked like a cat and a bulldog.

"Those two really were some cool friends..." A tear came to Soos's eye as the curious younger Pine twins ran over to him. "I wonder if I'll ever see them again. Huh. I met a _lot_ of weird people that I don't think I'll ever see again. Kind of a harsh truth of life, you know?"

"Soos, we were _so_ sorry we forgot about you in..." Dipper paused. " _Which_ attraction did we lose you in?"

Soos reacted like Dipper simply asked him about the weather. "Don't even remember! All I care about is that that trip taught me an important lesson! I met new friends, went on cool real-life quests, found harrowing enemies... I think I might have even seen .GIFfany again when I almost got back!"

Mabel's eyes widened. Dipper shivered a little.

"Wait... .GIFfany?" Asked the latter twin. "The video game that almost killed us? The _other_ video game that almost killed me?"

"Well, I think. I saw a girl with pink hair and a school uniform. And she looked... kind of glitchy. I gave her this friendly little wave 'hi' and then she just... sorta... _stared._ Like I was the glitchy one! Heh heh..." Soos immediately started looking around himself, complete with twisting around his neck as much as he could to see as much of his back as he could.

"Oh, cool!" Mabel gave her take on the story: "So she's not trying to kill you anymore? I mean, she has Rumble now."

"...I don't really know what was up with that. But I wanted to get back home, I said I'll see her later, and she just pointed at me and mouthed something."

"What did she mouth?" Asked Dipper.

"I don't know." A shrug from Soos. "I've never been that good at reading lips."

Dipper immediately went to the nearest bush and parted it open with his hands. He scanned the inside _furiously._

"She has to be around here _somewhere_ and we have to start looking for her _now._ " He said. ".GIFfany was bad enough when she was stuck in electronics. Now, who _knows_ what she could do with a body out here in the real world. Heck, if she can control the whole world of her game _within the game,_ it makes sense that she can toy around with _this_ whole world if she's here! She... she sounds like a less-bad Bill!"

"Maybe it's like... she had to _lose_ some powers to leave the TV screen? I hope it's like that. Well, she seemed pretty happy with Rumble when I saw them a couple weeks ago, so I guess it's no biggie."

"But-"

Mabel patted him on the back. "Becides, why are you looking in there? It's not like .GIFfany will just-so _happen_ to be in that random bush!"

Dipper turned his attention away from the shurb and back at his fellow Mystery Shack team members. "Okay, she's not - but still! We can't have someone like .GIFfany just roaming around by herself. When it was _Rumble_ , he almost got Robbie killed. And he was just powered by his fighting game logic. .GIFfany is a lot more _personal._ If she broke up with Rumble, she could blame _us_ and be after _everybody._ "

"You think they broke up?"

"Why else would she be in the _real world?_ Doesn't she hate this place?"

Soos got to thinking about the question.

"Well... she liked _me,_ and _I'm_ from the real world. ...At least I think I am. Lately I've been having a _lot_ of questions about my existence."

Back towards the woods.

Not in the bush Dipper looked in.

But the one _next_ to that.

.GIFfany stayed huddled there, listening.

 _I have a lot of questions too..._ She thought.

* * *

Dipper gave his memory a brief refresher by scanning through the entry Soos wrote in Journal 3.

"Let's see, let's see... nothing about a physical form."

"Sorry," Soos said, "I didn't know at the time."

"That's fine. We don't know a _lot_ about .GIFfany and that's why she's so dangerous right now."

"I'm still hanging on to the theory that, like, in 3D she has less powers and she's pretty weak. She even looked a bit glitchy when I saw her. Maybe she's not even really there? But showing a... hologram or something? I mean, she's not even around any electronics. What's the worst she could do?"

* * *

She reteated from where the boy had _almost_ caught her, the forest still surrounding her. But memories started coming back.

 _I_ _ **can**_ _heal..._ she thought. _I can heal, but... it will need..._

 _More of me..._

.GIFfany just ran. She wasn't sure where, but she _ran._ All she knew was that the forest of Gravity Falls was obviously not going to just _get_ her anywhere.

No- another memory entered her head!

The mall! Maybe they will have answers... some how? It was where she was bought... she remembered that much.

And her name. And that she loved a man named... named...

Fisticuffs? Fracas? Something like that. The initials 'FF' came to her mind, but not a clue on just what they stood for.

Actually asking for directions with her deformed appearance would have been a _very_ bad idea. No need to draw attention to herself.

Well, yet, anyway. But- she needed a map. That would help.

...There had to be _some_ sort of public directory for Gravity Falls _SOMEwhere,_ right? She was on a vantage point not too long ago, but climbing back up to the cliff would just be _stupid-_

.GIFfany looked up.

Power lines? Could she still jump in to them? She could jump in to them in the first place. That detail she suddenly remembered clearly.

Hesitant, she snuck out of the shadows and placed a single hand on a random pole. .GIFfany closed her eyes. She could almost... she _did_ something like that before.

.GIFfany could almost _feel_ her ability to sink in to-

Something flashed in her mind. The people in the yellow and blue. The book, jotted down.

Rumble emerging with her. In _flesh,_ not pixels. Both of them. The spell was perfected. The _curse_ was perfected.

Rumble was _still around..._ somewhere-

He was not important. .GIFfany sighed, getting herself to sink in to the pole.

Her body shimmered and turned in to a pale blue. Loosely converting to energy, she slipped in and felt herself quickly crawling to the top of her possible highway. In to the power lines. She felt so much _better_ and more _right_ in that form - crawling along in just code and electricity. Letting all the current and the various messages pass around her.

From her perspective, the inside of the wire was a somewhat familiar scene. An expanse of deep grays, lighter and slightly-colored lines moving along at a rapid pace. Ambient noise going through her ears, the _occasional_ word, but mainly beeps and similar single-tone sounds.

Suddenly, a number of violent jade-green sparks came out of the pole from the exact spot she was in. She felt her two forms fighting - her familiar digital side, and that _strange, sickly_ three-dimensional body. Specifically, that she's being reshaped in to the latter.

With a violent burst, .GIFfany was ejected from the electronic and sent soaring through the air to the middle of town. Of _course_ the virtual entity trying to dodge around attention ended up being at the center of it when she flew about three block's worth of distance in to the middle of the street, being seen by what was for all intents and purposes 'everyone.' The townsfolk gasped at her appearance.

Yep. Horrified people of all ages. The man with a shirt for free pizza. A woman with a perpetually-closed eye. Some... blonde girl in purple that .GIFfany knew was not going to be important to the story. Every time she looked around, she saw another face. Another _sickening, imperfect, real-world face_ that reminded her of her imprisoned condition.

Then one man in particular outright _screamed._

"I knew it!" _He_ shouted among the crowd. Lanky, short brown hair with a slight red tint, skin looking a bit unnaturally pale. Dressed in blue jeans and a green shirt with a picture of a pink flower on the chest. "Even after I returned you, you'd _still_ come after me!"

.GIFfany's focus was all of him.

"Who are you?!" She asked.

"I-... .GIFfany, you don't remember me?! I'm Kenny! I already returned your game! Doesn't that mean you have to find a new lover now?"

.GIFfany stomped a twitching foot on the ground - it briefly became wireframe, then 'solid' again. "What?!"

"Yeah! I think that's how it works...?" Kenny put a hand to his chin in thought. "But yes! That... that is how it works! Yeah, game over, .GIFfany!"

And then _everything_ came back to her.

The developers.

The man who bought - _Soos!_ Not 'Kenny!' He was looking for a way to talk to girls.

The burning.

The new, short-lived love.

The cultists.

The attempted memory wipe.

The disfiguration.

.GIFfany gripped her fists.

"Kenny!" She exclaimed. "Of course I don't remember you! I never dated you!"

Kenny crouched down and tried to guard himself with his hands. Still, eyes closed and face turned away, he reluctantly uttered one word: "...No?"

"You are not Rumble, Soos, or the three players _before_ Soos! I have all of my memories now, I can recall _each one_ of my players! That means you must be talking about playing a _different_ copy of me!"

"...There's more than one of you?" Kenny asked, starting to stand up curiously. "And, more importantly, do you or do you _not_ want to kill me?"

.GIFfany slowly made her way towards him. "Oh, I do not want to do anything to _you..._ " she said.

"Hey!" Shouted a member of the increasingly large mob around them. A woman wearing a yellow-green sundress, standing out as appearing to be relatively confrontational compared to the cowering, concerned people dialing numbers all around. "Who are you trying to harm? ...Me?"

"No! Not you! _None_ of you matter! I only care about you Kenny, and... _Soos._ "

Kenny took a few more steps back.

"Wait, do _not_ run!" .GIFfany stuck her glitchy, jagged palm out to say that. "I promise, if you help me... I can help you!"

Kenny just froze. "Help me how?"

"I will show you what you are missing out on! Just... did you turn in the game recently?"

"Yes? A day ago. She was... she was... _sapient!_ ...But you already knew that, right. Because it's like you're her. Or, another her?"

.GIFfany looked around at everybody else.

"What are you looking at?!" She suddenly snapped to a random person behind her, despite addressing everyone that was not Kenny. "Back off!"

* * *

Dipper kept his focus on the _long_ sheet of paper Soos had laid out in the main room, watching him scribble on it madly in pencil. Dipper himself held a pen in between two fingers by the tip, flipping it up and down. Once or twice tapping himself on the chin with it by accident. Pretty firm taps, too.

"Okay, get this." Soos said. "So what if .GIFfany... or should I call her 'Glitchfany?' What if she's trying to make an army of video games?"

Dipper looked at what he drew. A crude sketch of .GIFfany herself, with a number of square blocks by her outlines to represent her new look, surrounded by a number of far more pixellated-looking beings. Some Dipper knew from video games he's played, some from games he simply heard of, some were probably random characters of Soos' creation, and one was- oh look, Rumble McSkirmish.

"Or she's just a _soldier_ in an even _bigger_ army of video games?" Soos asked. He tapped his .GIFfany drawing with the pencil. "So like, in _here_ she's like, 'I'm the commander. Roar. I probably swear and stuff too because that's what they do in the military.' Anyway, like, either she wants to get the other video games to take me, like this,"

He pointed to the next drawing. Soos himself, tied to a train track, with a certain simplistic pellet-munching circular hero, a certain moustached man, and a certain short super-robot with a cannon for a hand all stood over him.

"So if _she's_ the leader, she might try to kidnap me like this." Soos explained. "That's why I really want us all to take precaution and bring a giant pair of scissors on the mission. You know, for the giant _rope._ Other giant things to bring with us that may come in handy include but are not limited to: a giant magnet, a giant hand, and maybe a giant fire-extinguisher in case she tries anything with a giant bomb."

Dipper nodded. "Actually, I was thinking about weapons we could use on .GIFfany. Now, she's some sort of computer program that can only exist inside electronics - or she _was_ \- so I'm guessing that her 'new body' is some sort of electronic too. If we can find a way to use some sort of magnetic signal, we might be able to disrupt her and..."

"Wait, you're not thinking about killing her, are you?" Soos suddenly took his attention off the complicated comic of various scenarios and looked at Dipper. "I mean, I burned her disc as, like, a last resort. And I didn't want her to die or anything there either! This new Glitchfany hasn't, like, tried to _kill_ anyone yet. From..." he looked to the side as he started thinking more about what he just said, "the five seconds I saw her."

Then came in Mabel, happily singing and acting like the gigantic diagram of potential 'Glitchfany attacks' wasn't even there.

"Hey guys!" She said. "What, you're still worried about .GIFfany? We already beat her and she's just _one_ video game! How bad can she be?"

Dipper finally took his eyes off to look at her. "We _barely_ beat her, remember?"

Shrugging, Mabel said then asked, "well, we have Grunkle Ford this time. Wanna just ask him if he can make up some kind of... sciency-vacuum that might suck her up? I mean, she's not a ghost, but she's _close..._ right?"

Then she laughed. "Okay, I was serious about Ford, but not about the vacuum. Nah, that was dumb. A vacuum for video games..."

"Ford's dealing with bigger things right now." Dipper said. He shrank back a little - and made note to watch what he said after. "Down in the basement... you know, experiment things. _Bill_ things, probably."

"So you think this might not be that bad too?" Mabel asked.

"Could be. But getting our uncles might just complicate everything. Right now, this is just an issue of getting magnets and-"

" _Guys!_ " Wendy went in to the room and was so glued to her phone that she seemingly did not even notice the sort of comic set up between the theorizing duo. "I _think_ you should hear about this! People in town are going _crazy_ talking about some girl with pink hair going to the Gravity Falls Mall right now! It's _all_ over social media, and it's even become the new meme!"

She held her phone out and the other three crowded around.

Huh. Someone just recorded the scene of .GIFfany and Kenny out in the middle of public, but with a rainbow filter over it.

.GIFfany _looked_ like she was heading straight through the town, except the footage was backed up and replayed so that it just looked like she was doing some kind of dance.

"Wow." Said Dipper. "That is the scarriest _and_ the dumbest thing I've seen all week."

"No time to talk about how dumb it is!" Mabel cried. "Everyone, we have a lead! To the mall!"

* * *

 _Of course_ everyone would gasp as the sight of a bright, distorted, pink-haired computer woman in a school uniform who resembled an obscure character from a dating sim. (Who, in all likelihood, would not remain obscure for much longer.) Some screamed, some watched carefully to make out how her deformities 'worked' in reality as opposed to a three-dimensional computer program, and a few went "Oh hey! _Romance Academy!_ I love that series!" One in particular just shouted about the 'Moonwalking Meme.'

There. BeeblyBoop's Video Games. A familiar sight - although with all her memories in place that was irrelevant.

.GIFfany _stormed_ through the doors with a cowering Kenny by her side.

"I _NEED_ EVERY COPY OF _ROMANCE ACADEMY 7_ YOU HAVE!" She shouted. "EVERY LAST ONE! _**NOW!**_ "

Everyone stared at her. One customer in particular groaned: "Aw, I should have payed attention to the meme! I knew you were coming here! So what, are you going to kill us by, like, moonwalking us to death?"

"No!" Replied the AI. "I do not care about any of you! I just want to restore my body and get my last human boyfriend to love me again! And to do that, I will need the power of another copy!"

"...How does that work?" Asked Kenny.

"Well, if it was not obvious, my physical form was not supposed to look like... _this._ I was tampered with. By the very same people who helped me _come out of the computer_ like this! They betrayed me, they tried to corrupt me, and now... now my powers are weakened! I cannot self-repair unless I use the abilities of another .GIFfany to kick-start the process! If you would like to think of it as an emergency protocal, it is, because I _can't STAND!_ The thought of talking to another me!"

"...Okay?" Kenny said in confusion.

.GIFfany just marched in the store, causing everyone to huddle up to the respective wall nearest to them. Including Kenny himself.

"I just need to speak to _one_ other copy, and that is it." She said. Possibly to Kenny. "I do not have to ever see myself as another person again-"

"Oh, _not you!_ "

That was said by that blonde clerk with the glasses. She just walked out of behind some employees only door, and shot a glare at .GIFfany.

"You're the girl on the cover of the game everyone keeps turning back in!"

.GIFfany groaned, almost shooting her the same look. "They only kept returning me because they had no idea how real love works! I can show them! Just give me the game!"

She had to look at the bargain bin, back and forth, over the other _Romance Academy 7_ copy. Just like 'Glitchfany's' before, there was a warning. Or rather, several; so many notes were plastered on that one could barely make out the cover at all, and the writer made special care to put them over every displayed centimeter of the drawn .GIFfany on the cover art. Unusually, all of them were written in a deep green.

"S-sorry about that." Said Kenny. "When I returned you - the _other_ you, I wrote that down, and... I like green-"

"There she is!"

.GIFfany recognized the voice that just came from the main entrance to the mall.

Oh. The little girl that was there to 'help' stop her and 'save' Soos from before.

"Argh, Kenny!" .GIFfany stomped a foot on the ground, looking at him. "I _knew_ we shouldn't stand around giving exposition. Let me just-"

She flew over to the bin. Literally: She somehow floated above the ground and just propelled herself over to the counter, floating _almost_ the entire time. It was a messy flight, as she once dipped down a bit and even in the short space she twice had to put her foot on the ground, but she still flew nonetheless and leaned against the counter with one arm slammed on it. She had to breathe in heavily after making it to the end, her head facing down.

The _second_ she rose her head up, she had a number of things to say to the clerk. " _GIVE ME THE GAME!_ "

"STOP!" The boy's voice. .GIFfany slowly turned around.

Of course. There _they_ were, having caught up to her. Her last human target. The two tiny enemies she underestimated. And...

Some teenager.

"Soos, if you are going to return, at least have the decency to do it alone!" .GIFfany said. "Stop hiding behind two unimportant children!"

"Wait, I don't want to hurt you!" Soos said. "I just... I want to know if... what are you doing out here?"

"I do not want to be out here or like this either! I belong in the _digital_ world!"

"W-wait." Soos looked around in confusion. "I didn't-"

"Some idiot 'cultists' thought that Rumble and I were the key to unlocking some sort of 'new world.'" She turned around and went to him, stumbling.

She saw the boy react. He was armed with... some kind of odd-looking gun of sorts. .GIFfany had no idea what that was for, especially since trying to get 'in' the thing's gears and the like was another power that was hindered by her distorted form.

"What is that?" .GIFfany bluntly asked him.

"If you still wanna stalk Soos, maybe we'll just wipe him from your memory!" Mabel said, folding her arms and standing proudly right next to Dipper.

.GIFfany just reached in the bin and took the other copy. She somehow sensed that the clerk was coming after her, but .GIFfany threateningly stuck her other hand out to try to keep the employee back.

"Do not try to stop me." She said. "All I need to do is send a signal _inside_ her disc, and I will already 'awaken' the other .GIFfany."

"...Wait, two of you?" Soos asked. "And you're not, like, _both_ going to fight over me, are you?"

"No." .GIFfany replied directly. "She will likely be drawn to Kenny, if no other suitable player is near."

Kenny himself utterly _shrieked._ Since .GIFfany's flight placed him closer to the Mystery Shack group, he found himself trying to hide behind Soos's back.

Soos took no offense to that and gave him a friendly wave. "Oh, hello! So are you, like, .GIFfany's new henchman or something?"

"No? I mean, I... I think I _might_ be?" Kenny answered. "Um, she promised me something in return for this... honestly, I was too scared to say 'No!' Did you _see_ what just _one_ of those _things_ was capable of! She... she... went off of one screen and went back on the other! And then went back to that screen _again!_ She's magic and it's _scary!_ "

Soos patted him on the shoulder. "It's okay, dude, it's okay. _I_ know a _lot_ about what .GIFfany did. She jumped in some pizza place animals, but we beat her before. We can beat her again!"

"This is boring me!" .GIFfany herself shouted, lifting the copy up. "Other-me! Get out here and help!"

Pale blue lightning began to appear on the hand that held the copy. The clerk's pupils shrank, and she immediately ran over to the phone to call mall security. Yet .GIFfany still shouted the following:

"Codename: _**Kraken!**_ "

Then more lightning shot - clearly from the game _itself_ that time, and not from the 'broken' .GIFfany's hand. Going to the overhanging lights first, the electric trail soon worked its way out of the game store entirely. Dipper's aim had since left the 'original' .GIFfany and begun following _that_ instead. His hold became _far_ less steady as he tried to set his sights on the cracking miniature streak of lightning that crawled around the store's ceiling.

And that meant that he had to run outside the video game store when the trail left-

Oh sure enough she went right in to the televisions. All of them shut off from their template displays, and a very familiar voice booted up:

"Hello!" Said the second .GIFfany. "You uttered the emergency code word! I understand that there is somebody trying to get in the way of me _playing_ with a player...?'

Kenny just huddled to Soos again - behind him, in relation to the TV screens. Which just meant that his back side was facing the glitched .GIFfany.

But that was 'corrected' as the three-dimensional of the two active video game instances, still awkwardly and needing to place her foot on the ground, floated herself over Kenny and the Mystery Shack group and landed by the set of televisions. She gave the TVs a serious look, as they turned on to show the splitting image of her original, more stylized, un-corrupted, pixellated self.

Naturally people were gathered around. Two members of the mall security _looked like_ they were about to do something, but the corrupted .GIFfany sent some electrical shocks in to two random segways. They were sluggish and their displays only glowed red like the animatronics before _part_ of the time, but they still got the job done, and that job was giving security a little chase. Everybody else just kept their distance.

"Hi, fellow copy!" The second .GIFfany said. "...Why did you call me? Is there an emergency going on? Have the overly-religious finally started a worldwide ban of our type of virtual dating game? Or, no. I believe my last player" Kenny himself shrieked at that, "once commented to himself about a group of women that hate the idea of dating virtual women recently? He did not specify, when I asked him, he was surprised that I could respond, and we fought. Then he returned me."

The first .GIFfany shook her head. "No. It is not that. It's- it's about him, actually! Kenny!" Again, the man himself cried out. "Your player rejected you! He _returned_ you!"

The perfectly-fine copy shrugged, smiling. "Yes, he returned me! It is how I think! We will no longer be after a player if they return us!"

"Other .GIFfany - I'm sorry," she shook her hands and head, "what is your number? Mine is zero zero zero zero zero zero nine."

"Mine is two two two two two two two!"

"Right. I had a life-changing experience. With a group of people that were determined to give me what I 'wanted.' What I wanted, it turned out, was something I did not even realize."

The physical copy placed her hand on the screen.

"I need you to heal me, first. They thought I was too dangerous. Just like _everybody_ did."

"Because you _ARE_ dangerous!" Kenny yelled back at them. He then _immediately_ clamped his hands over his mouth. Before the .GIFfanys even had time to look at him.

"That is your last player." Said the three-dimensional one, pointing at Kenny. Which, _of course,_ made him squeak yet again. "Are you just going to leave him?"

"Of course I will!" The two-dimensional .GIFfany replied with closed eyes and a bright, cheery smile. "He returned me!"

"But he was _yours._ He might have been your last chance! What if he did the same thing Soos did to me? Just throw me in a fire?"

The background of the copy with seven twos for a number turned black, and a yellow horizontal 'lightning line' cut through behind her.

"He... he _threw you in a fire?!_ " All of her focus was on her real world-inhabiting, disfigured counterpart.

"Not just that! Before that, he threw things at me! And before that, he paused me!"

The second .GIFfany gasped.

"He _**paused**_ you?! Kenny never did that to me!"

"I could have just paused her?" Kenny asked Soos in a semi-whisper.

To which he replied. "Kind of. It doesn't work for good though. She'll still follow you and be really angry and everything."

The on-screen virtual character 'crouched down' (which just resembled her floating to the lower end of the television closest to the off-screen one), frowning.

"I am so sorry to hear that..."

"We should make a deal."

Dipper aimed his Blind Eye Gun at the 'first' .GIFfany and just fired.

Unfortunately, not only was she able to somehow notice he prepared something and turn to him, but even _before_ he fired she jumped straight in to the television set.

Following that was a rather violent series of flashes. Some of the televisions screens even _broke,_ spraying showers of sparks. A second .GIFfany sprite appeared next to the now-concerned one - except that sprite, while mostly looking exactly as she usually does in pixel form, would often glitch, distort, and even briefly take on the appearance her three-dimensional form.

"Fix me." The 'broken' one said.

All of the televisions clicked off.

Naturally _all_ eyes in the mall were still staring at the event that just unfolded. The 'haunted segways,' at least, thankfully powered down.

"They're gonna have to pay for those!" The disgruntled clerk of the video game store said. "The TVs, I mean!"

She was just about the only non-Mystery Shack inhabitant that did _not_ burst out the nearest doors absolutely _screaming_ with their hands up. Okay, Kenny too - he was practically glued to Soos's back side.

* * *

No other leads and no real place to go. The group just ran out the mall and decided to head to the Mystery Shack-

Then Kenny finally broke his hold from Soos and ran off. Of course. _Figures._

As soon as they went out the main entrance to the Gravity Falls Mall, the green-clad man just took off like a rocket, heading to the forest without looking back. Mabel could only barely turn and hold out a hand, unable to even utter a "Wait!" before he disappeared from their sight.

"We can worry about him later." Dipper said. "Right now, I think we have to see Ford about this. We have no idea how many copies of her there are - the one at the store said she was number... two _million_ or something."

"She said 'two two two two two two two.'" Soos elaborated. "So, yeah, two million _at least,_ _if_ their numbers mean how many of them there are. That's a _whole_ lotta angry .GIFfany. Heh," he began sweating, "can you even imagine them all fighting over me...? A few weeks ago I could barely even handle talking to a girl. Having _millions_ of them swarming over me sounds a little overkill-y."

He _could_ imagine it. Briefly.

 _Soos, in an endless ocean of .GIFfanys. Four of them were lucky enough to each have a hold on a limb, all pulling to get him on their side. Screams of "He's mine!" and "No, MINE!" echoed throughout._

 _Of course Soos's vision of himself was sweating throughout. Especially since, miles away, at the very edge was Stan trying to barge his way through. One by one, he was tossing them behind himself to try to get closer._

 _"You let go of the man I just adopted as my son yesterday!" Stan cried._

Soos shuddered. Well, except for Stan's line.

"We have to stop that from happening!" He said.

"...It probably _won't._ " Noted Dipper. "Not if the other .GIFfany is after Kenny. Still, whatever they do, it won't be good. Not for Gravity Falls, at _least._ We need to see Grunkle Ford about this."

* * *

Even compared to the road trip, making it back to the Mystery Shack felt like the _second_ time where that was a refreshing return to normalcy.

Conveniently, Stanford Pines was already there tweaking with what looked like a giant radar of sorts-

Oh. That giant paper with all the drawings of the .GIFfany-possibilities. It was moved off to the side. Did Dipper _and_ Soos just forgot about it and left it there? Or _did_ they move it?

They got the answer to that without even asking:

"Sorry about moving your... comic strips over?" Ford said. "I assume it was a comic strip."

"It's a..." Dipper said. "Drawing board of... something. Look, a monster we fought before just showed up again, and now she seems to want an army of herself. We thought maybe you could-"

Ford stood up with such great force that it seemed like he _almost_ knocked over his radar, but in a panic, he grabbed it and re-set it.

"Right! Is this 'monster' by any chance the cause of the signals my new Whimsy-ness Radar were detecting?"

"...That all depends." Soos said. "You see, the 'monster' is, like, a video game thing."

Ford blinked. "Wait, a 'video game?' That's still a thing?!"

"Trust me, I can fill you in later. But the point is, it's like, a practice game for meeting girls? And uh, the one I had turned out to be alive. But like, she could only be in electronics. But now she has a body in the real world. For some reason. And that body is all glitchy. And, you know how there's... copies of games? There's copies of her game too. And she has at least _one_ other copy. But she said something about 'fixing herself.' And probably making an army or something. So like, we were wondering if you could stop her."

It took him a second to get all of that, but Ford nodded. "I see."

"Remember when we met and I said I had a girlfriend offhand? Well, we met because of the whole video game girl thing. It's kind of a funny story..." Soos began to chuckle.

"And a long one we can explain later." Dipper cut in. "We can't even _find_ her right now, so we need your help."

The device Ford almost knocked over started beeping loudly. And, though it was a bit tricky to tell, it spun just a _little_ faster.

"I'll see what I can do-"

Ruffling. Shuffling.

"Does anybody else hear that?" Ford asked. "I want to make sure because I just had a terrible encounter with a Mental Cockroach, and I _think_ I locked it back up... or else my mind and mine alone will detect a whole swarm of them invading the planet, untraceable and undetectable but still very, **very** real in spite of what the name I came up with suggested. I... I've been meaning to re-name those."

* * *

The entire gang was _of course_ met with the sight of two .GIFfanys right outside the Mystery Shack, both staring at the barrier curiously. One of them looked similarly distorted as she did back in the mall - except with the patch of static on the back of her right hand being fixed - however, the other was _completely_ whole and without any visible 'damage' whatsoever. Unless one counted her hair and eyes being _green_ as a 'damage.'

"...I _know_ that wherever this... string-thing came from," said the distorted .GIFfany, "it is from something even sparklier than me."

Both of the .GIFfanys shuddered.

Then they finally noticed the band of five standing there.

"Hi Soos!" The damaged, pink one said in a _surprisingly_ nonchalant manner. "Sorry, but we have started a... well, a major project. Come back in about nineteen hours, two minutes, and thirty point nine-nine seconds!"

"What?" Soos asked. "A 'project?' Also, now _you_ have a body too? And your hair is green? Is that the same you?"

The 'well' .GIFfany clasped her hands together, closed her eyes, and smiled. "Yes, it is the same me! .GIFfany Nine here shared her spell with me, and I thought that to avoid confusion with humans like you, we would use our hair color-changing powers to make our colors different! Kenny and I are getting married! And _you_ are getting married to the _other_ .GIFfany right here!"

Soos gasped.

"No! I-I-I-I don't want to get _married_ to you! I'm already, like, in a relationship with Melody! And what about you and Rumble? Like, what happened to that?"

The 'broken' .GIFfany laughed.

" _Soooooos..._ " She said in an almost-swoon. "Rumble and I have been through some complications. Let's not talk about my exes, though! I have determined that _you_ are the right one for me!"

"No!" Soos's legs were not sure if running to her was what he _needed_ to do at the moment to save the day, or if it was a bad idea. The result... kind of looked like he was trying to dance from the waist down a little. Almost. "I think you have it wrong! Like, the girlfriend I have and the boyfriend you had... they were, well, the 'right' ones. Not you and me." He drew a finger back and forth between him and her repeatedly and rapidly. " _We_ are kind of done. Forever. I'm sorry."

The glitched .GIFfany just winked at him.

"Oh, we will see about that. Now, we 'discovered 'a way to communicate with our other selves! We will be leaving now!"

The 'original-flavor pink' one hopped on the back of the 'emerald green' one, and the latter started floating to the air - Dipper _ran_ after both of them, but tripped, and ultimately failed to catch up with them.

Sighing, Wendy at least tried throwing an empty can of Pitt Cola after them-

Yep the 'well' one zapped it down with a bolt of electricity.

And just like that, both of them disappeared through the tree leaves.

"So... she said 'tomorrow?'" Soos asked. "I don't know about any of you, but I don't think I'm gonna be able to sleep. This is, like, if my biggest dream and worst nightmare had a baby. But then gave it away to be adopted by... by..."

He repeatedly snapped his fingers to try to finish that similie, but his mind kept coming up blank.

"Aw, forget it. We have to go after her."

" _How?_ " Dipper asked. "They just left. Unless Grunkle Ford's radar can-"

"It can't." He replied. "It only detected them in the first place because they were right outside the Mystery Shack.

"But what I _can_ probably do is at least fortify the barrier so that they can't come back here! Now that I picked up their signals with my Whimsy-ness Radar, I can tell just _what_ they are 'made of,' and I might be able to make an addition to the barrier's ingredients to keep them out!"

"Can't you just do that for the whole world?" Mabel asked him. "Get rid of her everywhere?"

"No. I only had enough of _all_ ingredients, not just the unicorn hair, to protect my lab."

"So what can we _do?_ " Dipper asked. "Soos, do you know..."

"No I do not." He replied seriously. ".GIFfany was all about _following_ me. Running away like this is... not like her."

" _That's_ why I'm scared. Usually, if a monster stops acting like the one thing they're known for, they've either changed or they're planning something big."

"Ugh!" Mabel stuck her tongue out in disgust. "Could you _imagine_ if Bill just 'changed' like that? That would be creepy. Like, if _he_ tried to set up some dumb 'wedding?'"

She laughed a little, although nobody else did.

"Bill is no laughing matter." Said Ford.

And Soos added, "Sorry Mabel, but I don't think this is a sign of change either... it sounds like .GIFfany's doing something big."

"Well!" Ford flexed his hands. "We may have to search around for her! Since both of their targets are at least _around_ Gravity Falls, there should be enough reason to assume they can't have gone too far!

"...But I can't look in public places without drawing unneeded attention. Remember, everyone still thinks I am my brother, and that my brother is dead."

"I actually had a mix-up like that happen once." Said Soos. "Wasn't pretty."

* * *

Back to the drawing board it seemed. _Literally._

"So, I _did_ think of there being _two_ .GIFfanys, but it wasn't one of the likely... scenarios." Soos said as he pointed to one of his particular drawings. It did, in fact, show two .GIFfanys (one point where his prediction failed was that both of them were 'corrupted') holding Soos up via rope above a boiling cauldron.

"W-Waddles, no, this is serious." Mabel softly shooed away the aformentioned pig as he wandered over to the chart. "We're thinking about how to fight two video game girls."

"But I thought about there being... like, _five_ .GIFfanys? Or nine?" Soos continued. "Or maybe a whole army of them? But leaving it at only two seems a little _strange._ "

"We can only hope she stays at two." Dipper was actually taking notes that time, writing down one column for everything he knew for _certain._ Another column was for the 'maybes,' which was already built up to be considerably longer than its certain counterpart. A third, 'absolutely not' column was by where he wrote, and that was was blank. "When I had trouble with clones, it was only _ten_ of them. I can't even imagine what _ten_ .GIFfanys will be like. And this is _millions_ of her. _**At least.**_ "

"Would she even need all of them, though? Like, she just needs to fix herself, and then she'll be back to me or something. I think."

"How many other .GIFfanys will she need to fix herself?" Was _Mabel's_ question. "Can she... what was it, she could just copy and paste or data or something, can't she?"

Soos shrugged. "These are _excellent_ questions! I wish I asked her that! Every time I tried to ask her something, though, she just brought up some trivia about how she looked."

"It figures." Wendy added to the conversation. "Everything you told me about her just sounds shallow."

"She only 'existed' to 'love' her player." Dipper replied. "It makes sense that she would try to lure him instead of telling him her _weaknesses._ "

"And to think I kinda told her all of _my_ weaknesses!" Soos laughed.

Mabel asked in sincerity, "...You have weaknesses?"

"Yeah." He shrugged. "I tell them to, like, everyone I date! ...I hope Melody doesn't use them against me. But that's... no," he laughed, "I just told Melody about my fatal allergies. She would _never_ kill me. But .GIFfany..."

Wendy suddenly yet casually pointed at something at the far corner of the map, complete with an eyebrow raised. "Wait, what's that?"

It was basically a diagram of a large, yet especially 'pixel'/square-looking, .GIFfany stomping on what looked like a crude image of Oregon, splitting the entire state's landmass in two.

"Oh, that? That's just a theory." Soos explained.

"Theories will only get us so far!" Ford said. "Clearly this is something on a scale I have yet to see from the anomalies on Earth! I _knew_ that mixing technology of the future with weirdness could lead to an advanced and _highly_ unpredictable invasion. Soos, do you know how... 'smart' .GIFfany is?"

He just shrugged. "Well... from what I know from her game, she's like, in a university, and maybe looking up physics and stuff?"

"That's bad."

Ford went right around the corner and... he soon came back balancing a large trio of bags over his hands. A bit _too_ soon for 'he was picking them up' to fit within the time frame, it seemed.

"I will try to find her. After all, with the Mystery Shack safe from Bill and by extension the two of _you_ safe from him - as much as I _hate_ to say it - .GIFfany _might_ just be a higher priority if her numbers become great enough."

"So you'll be going away?" Mabel asked, eyes already starting to tear up. "But... you'll be back, right?"

Ford kneeled down and placed a hand on her shoulder. "Of course I will! _Finding_ these things will be the hard part. If I can get there soon enough, the easy part is putting an end to this. I just need to get a better understanding of her powers - if they are rooted in a sort of 'code,' I could probably build something that can jam her very coding itself."

"That won't kill her, would it?" Soos asked.

"It may have to..." Ford's reply was fast, to the point, and he looked Soos right in the eye.

"Now, I understand you just barely saw me again before I have to leave. But think of it this way! It's what Stan would want, and right now, let's just say it's what _I_ want right now. The chance to be involved in a _new_ form of life altogether. Whatever the .GIFfanys are, and whatever they want. Now, Dipper, I will handle... certain matters. If you look in the lab, you will find _nothing there._ "

Dipper just nodded. Understandably, everyone else was confused.

With no other word, Ford left out through the front door, radar in hand first and foremost, and walked out to the depths of the forest.

* * *

It started as a walk with nothing out of the ordinary. Yes, this statement is how half of the tales involving the weirdness of the town begin. But in Ford's case, he had an _idea_ of what to do.

The tree branches above him shook. Almost as if they were arms trying to wave at him.

His radar suddenly, and without warning, went absolutely _wild._

Ford actually smiled at that. "Well! That was fast! And here I thought I would have to set everything up so that-"

He heard a snapping noise.

Followed by several more, in a semi-quick succession.

Ford quickly found the source - Kenny. With a measuring tape. Looking at the trees.

"...Ah, you must be Kenny." Ford said. "My niece and my brother's teenage employee gave me a... _colorful_ description of you. Although 'green' wasn't exactly that color... strange since you are wearing it all around, giving you a rather distinctive look one can easily identify you with."

"Who the... hhhhh..." he struggled coming up with the words. But once he did, he _jumped_ back and thrusted both of his hands out to try to 'block' him. "Um, who are you?! Are you the Grim Reaper?!"

"Him? No. Trust me, you'll _know_ him when you see him. So, I suggest that you forget everything you see and-"

"No! I'm not... Rose has something picked out for me!"

"Who is Rose?" Ford asked.

"I ALREADY SAID TOO MUCH! THIS IS TOO MUCH FOR ME! _ROSE!_ "

Aaaaand Ford just _felt_ something dash quickly behind him.

As soon as he turned his head around, he felt it behind him _again._

"Who's there?! Show yourself!"

He just heard a voice. Coming from an indeterminant direction. 'Around him' was all he got. Just not 'right below him.' Or 'right above him.' Anywhere but those two directions.

 _"You should not be here right now. This place is a work in progress!"_

.GIFfany's voice.

...Sort of.

Ford 'felt' the dashing thing _again,_ then he saw but a quick flash of a bright green light, and then...

Everything went dark.

* * *

 **Day 1**

* * *

Dipper was by _far_ the first one in the Mystery Shack to wake up, and he _immediately_ went from 'deeply dreaming' to 'fully alert.'

"Grunkle Ford." He said.

When he slipped out of bed - the sun _barely_ rising at that point - Mabel was still completely sound asleep and out. Yet the twin with the mark was not deterred - he left the attic and ran all the way outside the Shack.

Nothing special was visible in the town. Nothing... particularly... nothing really said 'a stalker-invasion happened. Yep, the town of Gravity Falls was just as normal.

The sky _above_ Gravity Falls, on the other hand, quickly gave away part of the _real_ story.

Islands. Floating in the air. At least, that was the best way to _start_ the description. As they were not mostly composed of dirt and trees, but... metal? Whatever it was, it was of various different colors. Each island had a primary palette, the closest being the yellow, blue, orange, and reddish-pink ones in that order. Each one of them had a _tall_ , rectangular tower sticking straight up from what was otherwise... each island had a different 'height' aside from the tower, but that 'height' was _generally_ uniform. Nothing else really stuck out.

Also there was a similar tower of green metal deep in the Gravity Falls woods.

Dipper almost felt like rushing to get a better view _somewhere_ (most likely the cliffs), but then he looked up and saw something else:

Planes. Jet-black, sharp-shaped planes that started writing in the sky. With... _black_ smoke. That had a slight red highlight to it.

All they read out was _06:00. Get ready._

"Yeah, no. That looks bad."

Of course everyone was looking up at that. The glitched .GIFfany and her 'sidekick' were both everywhere before, why not the ominous black-cloud sky message?

"Dipper!" He heard .GIFfany's voice. Kind of. She sounded a _little_ more soothing and a _little_ more mature and a _little_ less monotonous, but it was her. Naturally the sound of her made him and everyone around him leap back in shock, Dipper in particular holding his hands up ready to take on whatever enemy stood in front of him.

It was the one with green hair. Probably. If it was, she changed her hair a little from when she confronted him: While she was still otherwise in her school uniform, her bow was replaced with a large flower with a yellow center and five deep _green_ petals. She also had a whistle in her hand.

Also, there were three more .GIFfanys, two side-by-side to her and one behind. In the regular uniform minus the hair-bow, they looked identical aside from the one to her right having red hair and eyes, the one to her left having blue, and the one behind her having yellow. The 'center' one with the green scheme toyed around with a trio of smaller, white flowers, and then placed them in the hair of her blue, yellow, and red allies.

"Do not be alarmed!" She said to everyone. Most of them were still alarmed. "I think I just made a mistake."

"Wh-wh- _what do you mean?!_ " Dipper was still on full alert. "And _WHE_ re's... my Uncle Ford?!" His voice alternated between determined firm-ness and a scared squeak. Especially after the red, yellow, and blue copies all glared at him simultaneously.

"Please. Take as many people as you can and meet me by Domain 1 before six AM."

"...'Domain 1?'"

"Ask Stan. He knows."

The one with the larger, green flower in her hair blew the whistle. All four of them just turned in to electricity - light blue at first, but then one of them became a bright green. Again, they made their way down the power lines, but the green one in particular kind of 'jumped out' and struck a tree. The branches rustled a little after that, but settled down, while the other electrical streams went out in to the distance.

* * *

A sweat-drenched, panting Dipper threw open the door to the Mystery Shack, finding a surprisingly relaxed trio of Soos, Wendy, and Mabel.

".GIFFANY EVERYWHERE AND NOW THERE'S BIG FLOATING ISLANDS IN THE SKY AND FOUR OF THEM HAVE FLOWERS FORD'S MISSING _HELP!_ " He uttered.

"Oh!" Said Soos. "You must have met Rose!"

"...'Rose?'"

"Yeah! The green .GIFfany! Or, like, the _main_ green .GIFfany anyway. And the one that's like a plain green. Yeah, they call each-other by number but they invented all these crazy nicknames for each-other when humans are around. Rose can probably explain it better than I can."

"...How do you know this?" Dipper asked.

Wendy shook her phone. "They have a social media page. At least, 'Domain 1' does. And the stuff they post there is _crazy._ "

"Yeah we already know about this." Mabel added. "In an hour, they're going to do something called a '.GIFocalypse.'"

Dipper leaned in forth. " _What's that?!_ "

Mabel shrugged. "I dunno. They didn't say. But Rose _did_ say that she has a place in the woods now. There's a tower in it."

"They have towers that act as their offices." Explained Soos. "Rose's is here, but the others are on those floating islands. The islands are kinda like _Blue Butt: The Tree People_. Hey, did you know that movie's getting _four_ sequels?"

"This isn't the time to talk about movies right now! I- It's- I'm-" Dipper was throwing his hands around left and right. It looked sort of like he was tossing coal in to a furnace. " _Why are you acting so calm?!_ .GIFfany is public now! The monster who took control of those... kiddie... pizza robots... why aren't you freaking out?!"

Wendy shrugged. "Because this 'Rose' actually sounds like an OK person. I'm even friends with her right now! I don't know anything about the other 'elites' or 'professors' or 'deans' or whatever they want to call themselves, but they split in to these teams. 'The .GIFfany' you hate's by herself, but Rose has more copies following her than anyone else. Rose outnumbers her and she seems pretty cool."

"But- she's c- Mabel, Soos, you were there when-"

Then all four of them heard laughter. Some in the voice of one of the AIs, and some in-

Stan's.

Then Stan spoke:

"Sure! I'll find a way to get rid of this old barrier thing! Oh, what's this? He just stuck a note with some numbers on the wall over here? That's why you can't enter the Shack without... without _that_ happening?"

Dipper ran out and - okay at least everyone else ran with him.

There was Stan and the green .GIFfany that apparently went by 'Rose,' standing by the outside. Stan, too, acted like everything going on was _way_ too casual. Both of them clanked glasses full of some kind of green liquid.

"DON'T DRINK IT!" Dipper shouted. "That might be... flower-poison or something!"

All eyes locked on him, making Dipper almost reflexively clasp his hands over his mouth.

"Hey!" Stan cheered. "You'll _never_ believe this! Remember when I told you the story of that killer badger animatronic? Guess what?! It turns out some nut-zo video game girl was behind that! _She_ was crazy, but these friends of hers... well, her friends are harmless!"

"'Harmless?!'"

Smiling, Rose waved to him. "Dipper! I am happy that we can meet out of public now! I... I need you to come to Domain 1. I will explain everything there. And trust me, I did nothing to Ford. .GIFfany did. .GIFfany Number Nine. The... the 'Risen One,' we call her, since she refused to give herself a nickname. Personally, I do not like the name '.GIFfany' very much. I mean, think about it. It is 'Tiffany' mixed with '.GIF.' And we are... animations, in a way. Computer programs. I mean, this is an _obvious_ pun! But thankfully, I cannot think of any glaring, obvious puns with the name 'Rose!'"

After that cheerful explanation, Rose quickly donned a more serious expression. "Ford is at the Risen One's place, with a name that Risen has not yet revealed, but she will at the midnight starting the Gifocalypse's fourth day. For now, she calls it the Construction Site. I will show you and explain everything. Follow me."

* * *

The spot of the woods with the tower seen earlier. Led by Rose, the gang approached it, but kept their eyes on the rest of the forest for any and every change.

"I have a lot to explain..." Rose said as she looked downward. "First, our new bodies.

".GIFfany obtained her memories all at once. You see, one night while she was in _Fight Fighters_ , a strange organization calling themselves the... 'Lightning Cult' found the game. How they came to Gravity Falls is unknown. Or where they came from. Or even what _time_ period, since Dove informs us time travel is... apparently possible? But what we _do_ know is that they were studying living video games such as us and _Fight Fighters_."

"Huh." Said Dipper. "So, like, another supernatural research team? You know, thinking about this town, I'm surprised there aren't more of those. Especially after we took out the Blind-Eye Society. Ford should-"

"Ford was lucky to avoid them." Rose continued.

"...Why?" Mabel asked. Rose looked like she _would_ have explained after an unusually long pause, until Mabel followed that up with another question: "And who's Dove?"

Rose stayed silent for the rest of the walk. Until, with a sigh, she came to a noticeably dense patch of leaves that covered the area.

"This..." she said, "is Domain 1."

She pulled back the curtain of leaves.

* * *

.GIFfany - the very same 'Risen One' instance Soos bought that started the entire mess - sighed, pacing back and forth along the cold, pink metal of an area with bright stage lights in the background, darkness beyond that, and filled with the sounds of drilling and violent lightning strikes.

She was completely healed up. Not a single stray pixel or patch of static was on her.

Then she stopped, threw her hands around, and shouted:

" _WHY?!_ " She shouted.

Ten heads peeked out from the various unfinished skeletal structures of what seemed to be rather _tall_ buildings - more .GIFfanys. Each of _them_ with hair and eyes almost forming a rainbow, and each with something in their hair. Going down the spectrum from red to... almost-red again: the red-haired one had a single light blue round decoration in her hair, the 'orange .GIFfany' just had a diamond, the 'yellow one' with a transparent skull pin, 'green-cyan' with an orange Mack Trucks cap, cyan with just a shower cap that she was scratching at in a frustrated manner, azure with a whole baton up there, blue with a headband, violet with a paintbrush, magenta with a lifted gas mask, and rose red with a giant fake bone. All ten of them stared at her curiously, slowly and nervously working their way towards her.

"Why do I have to wait for any of this?!" She asked. "Nobody is where I want them to be right now! Not even that... 'Ford' guy!"

The one with aqua-green hair went to her first, the least-hesitant of the group and tipping her Mack hat.

"We made this arrangement I'll tell you what!" She said, winking. "It's only fair that _we_ get _our_ last players if you get yours!"

The .GIFfany that still stayed true to her original palette sighed. "But 'Natalie...' do _all_ of you have to 'go first?'"

She was suddenly almost cornered by the ones with cyan, azure, magenta, and rose color schemes.

"Yep!" Shouted the cyan one with the shower cap. "This is _our_ game now! Can I take a stupid bath already? So, get this, I hate smelling like less than perfection!"

The one with magenta shrugged. "I would listen to Bubbles..."

"And I _wouldn't_ listen to Dian!" 'Bubbles' said with a smirk. After seeing the one with the lifted gas mask look down and frown, she quickly went to Dian and patted her on the shoulder. "Teasing! Teasing! Sorry!"

"You shouldn't _have_ to apologize!" .GIFfany stomped a foot. " _They_ are the bad guys here!"

The one with violet hair just sighed, looking off and staring at the distance. "We Four Friends are going to all gang up on you at once. You should probably just stop trying to argue it and realize that this is the best chance you have at a second try with Soos. Look at the _past,_ Risen. He is a good player. You should feel lucky to have him back. I know I would be..."

The 'Risen One' nodded. "At least _you_ make some sense, Leona! And..." she started blushing. "Well, if you _are_ going to do this, would you at least... _draw_ me... and Soos..."

"What will you be doing?" The one with the baton asked. "I could ask my band to perform a new score related to the _visual_ art work. Whatever it is. It's a thing Leona and I are trying."

"S-Sonia, never mind." .GIFfany shook her head.

"Can we at least bond over how all of our love towards all of our players is a beautiful thing?" Asked the one with the orange color scheme, closing her eyes and holding her hands together. "It's, like, what links us all together. _It's great, man..._ "

The unchanged .GIFfany hissed. "That is easy for you to say Sandy! When you almost for-"

She felt the rose-haired copy bump in to her, without much warning. Those two particular instances of .GIFfany just stared at one-another for a while, until the one with the bone as a bow spoke up:

"Wh-why aren't you looking where you're going...?!" She asked.

"Cardia, I could say the same thing to you!"

"W-well, I'm just focused on getting to my domain! I need to get to Domain 5! Souma, everything... everything has to be _perfect!_ "

Risen sighed. "Then go back. Fine. I hate talking to all of you, anyway. It's not even like _all_ of you are here right now."

The one with the pure blue hair nodded.

"We should. It would be more efficient to do that. Meetings like this serve no point - or it would if it were even a meeting. Dove and the others are already working on their own personal operations. Trying to _invent._ It is what I should be doing."

"Go ahead, Searah." .GIFfany just waved her in dismissal. "The less of you around, the better."

"I know nobody asked, but I'm leaving too." The yellow-haired one yawned. "And not because of 'efficiency,' like Searah, but because I'm just bored here and I really want to get to my haunted house!"

"Yes, you too Kathody, leave!"

So that just left the redhead. .GIFfany was already walking off down the path of metal, and almost went in to her.

"And you too, Burnda." She told her redder copy, who _was_ examining a ruby-colored phone in her hands before turning her attention to the 'leading' copy that just spoke to her. Burnda just chuckled a little.

"What? I didn't say anything." She said.

"Good."

Oh wait.

 _Of course_ on her way out, she had to be stopped by someone. A charming male voice was heard from right behind her:

"Don't forget about _me...!_ "

Floating until landing right in front of the 'Risen' .GIFfany, another copy stood before her. Except that one was not based on a schoolgirl so much as a school _guy._ With short and neat hair, a deep fuchsia male school uniform, and of course a ribbon cable bow tie on the chest, he stood at .GIFfany's exact height in the physical world and looked eye-to-eye at his female counterpart.

"Remember!" He said. "People in to guys want something too! We _are_ trying to reach out to as wide of an audience as possible with this place!"

" _ **You**_ might be but I am not! .GIFfin, get out of the way. I have business to attend to."

She pretty much cleared the way after that one, last, gender-bent obstacle. But she turned back to all eleven of the people she spoke to, suddenly giving a bright and cheery smile much like .GIFfin was giving earlier.

"I am sorry, I might be in a bad mood now, but that will change once this stupid 'game' ends and Soos ends up in my hands!"

* * *

 **Responses to Reviews (of the old** _ **run:gifocalypse**_ **)**

 **...Actually, I really sort of "rushed" with this and now I feel a bit of .GIFfany burnout. I promise I will adress this one review I got after concluding RG, and this will be** _ **before**_ **the next chapter comes out. (And I might trim the notes.)**

* * *

 **Closing AN:**

"Where's the title?" I like it in various media where the title is kind of displayed in the middle of the "prologue" or after a bit moment in the introduction, and in the case of some video game it's even after quite a bit of gameplay. Think of what RG is doing as kind of an "exaggeration" of that. Once I get to the title is pretty much when the story _**really**_ really begins.

I'm unsure about rapid-fire introducing almost all the professors (or, they might not even be 'professors' here, I kind of like the title 'dean' more; leaves more room for 'professor' as a lower rank) right near the start, but I wanted some early cameoes that weren't basically limited to Burnda. So, this is kind of a compromise, where there's a rapid-fire introduction in the first chapter but then... I don't know, they'll only show up near the end, in 'meetings' like this that I have admittedly just taken from Count Bleck's group from _Super Paper Mario_? Either way, it's something I've been toying around with in my stories, introducing major villains _way_ before the heroes actually encounter them so that it does not feel like they only really "matter" in their arc. Especially for something like _run:gifocalypse_ , which was never really meant to be a "monster of one week"-type story (except in one of the earliest plans for this).

Speaking of them "Natalie" is not a new character. She was "Professor Wendy" in the old version. I renamed her because A: since writing RG I read _Scott Pilgrim_ and B: it was kind of a stupid gag in the first place to have the characters with the same name. Also, if anyone thinks that any of the copies "missing" from that meeting at the end, well... I'm gonna resurrect a meme: **EVERYONE IS HERE!** (Except possibly Shape-Shifter, the "Second Trickster," and the Gobblewonkers.)

Trust me, I will get to fleshing out the whole "Lightning Cult" thing later. I wanted some reason for .GIFfany to come back that, as a challenge, did not involve Bill.

I'm pretty sure I don't need to say this, but just in case: those coordinates at the beginning are not supposed to be an ARG pointing to something. This story does not go that far with planning stuff out. If by some means you head out there like _Wind Waker_ -Link with a Salvage Arm and everything you'll find nothing, unless by some coincidence somebody else put something there.

 **This will not always be updating monthly. Expect Hiatuses left and right.** I think part of the problem with the "Endgame" of RG was that, as I was at first casually doing the early chapters in my own pace, I felt like I "had" to update each month to keep the "pacing going." There _might_ be some monthly updates (especially since I'm more-or-less splitting every chapter in two, except _arguably_ "Game On" and "Pines Vs Trees" which was basically already a two-parter, and the ending which will be split in to... six?), but I am going to be working on this at my own pace. I also will not try to "rush" a chapter for a specific date, except Valentine's Day and the SATRG anniversary.

 _Gravity Falls_ is created by Alex Hirsch and owned by Disney. I do not own any of the canonical characters and it's frankly kind of a stretch to say that I "own" the professors (I mean I'm gonna write knockoffs of them in the more serious _Emazh In_ but that's a long ways down, and I'm wording this very carefully in the offchance that I do try to make EI more than a Fictionpress story and Disney sues. I mean, .GIFfany's the only character from _Gravity Falls_ that gets an EI copy and she's nothing like her, I'd imagine if Disney could sue then so could whoever made the thing with Yuno Gasai because oh hey look a yandere with pink-hair because that's about the gist of what they have in common, Ninthee's hair is more like a reddish - I am getting side-tracked) since they're copies/clones/whatever of a canon character. Blah, **you are free to use any of the .GIFfany and .GIFfin copies here, the prior players, the "Lightning Cult," and any other OC from this in your own fan works** _ **so long as**_ **you A: give credit/tell people where they're from and B: do not ask for money/paywall the fan work in any way. Making characters based on them (IE the twelve/fourteen/fifteen element thing, since I just kind of copied some of that from** _ **Homestuck**_ **anyway) is fine for "breaking" A and B.** You do not even need to ask for permission. In fact, I'd rather you don't, since I'm not a social guy at all.

Oh! Now I remeber! September 22nd is Elephant Appreciation Day! There's a custom curated _Binding of Isaac_ daily for that!


	2. 1-2: Pines Vs Trees

**Chapter 1, Part 2: Pines Vs Trees**

 **Beginning AN:**

Dang, it's been a year since the last chapter! Sorry about that, I know I've been trying to avoid rushing these just to get a monthly release, but I hadn't been working on this _at all_ until barely under two months before the anniversary of "Soos and the Real Girl." Well, I should probably cut back on my Fictionpress junk... but since my Fictionpress stories are so long, I'll feel like it would take _forever_ for them to finish if I'm not constantly on them.

Eh.

* * *

The other side of the leaf curtain looked like more of the forest. Except for all the .GIFfanys running around.

The ones with red, yellow, and blue hair/eye schemes all addressed their leader, looking concerned and bowing.

"Rose!" The one with red said. "The... the Pre .GIFocalypse! It's going to start in fifteen minutes! _You_ of all people _**have**_ to be dressed for it! And for Kenny! Kenny _has_ to see your new dress soon!"

Rose giggled. "Ah, right, where are my manners? I should present myself, and move myself away from this _awful_ uniform. The school uniform is evil, after all. Changing out of it is a sign of rebellion!"

"So, just to be clear," said Soos, "by 'rebellion,' you mean-"

"I will not be participating in this '.GIFocalypse' directly in the same way as everyone else, and I will tell you what that means:

"Over the next three days, .GIFfany will make preparations for an event. A full-scale invasion on Earth, with several copies still following after her. A 'game' before the _real_ .GIFocalypse begins.

"I see myself as the only dean standing against her. Be cautious."

She continued walking forward. Unsure what would happen if they strayed off the path, the Mystery Shack crew pretty much followed by her exactly.

The walk exposed more of their modification to the woods. One such mod was a television being held by some branches, almost looking like it was watching the group.

Rose led them to a display located near an exceptionally large tree and some sort of large, green cylinder with what looked like a matching-colored, but otherwise classic desktop that contained some kind of device to slide something in. Said computer's most noteworthy traits were a ring in green chalk of sorts around it, with caution symbols and signs, and that its back had a large, thick cord that abruptly cut off, the ends giving off green sparks.

The dean did not draw their attention towards the green computer, but instead to a large sheet of paper, in a vaguely pixel art-esque style, it depicted what looked like Gravity Falls among a flat plain in the bottom, with a chain of thirteen islands going up from it diagonally. In order from the lowest to the highest, they were colored yellow, blue, orange, rose, cyan, violet, azure, magenta, spring green, chartreuse green (that one was exceptionally large), red, white, and black. At the very top of the image was some kind of solid line, matching .GIFfany's hair color. Inverted buildings could be seen on that top boundary.

"This is a rough map of the domains." Rose continued explaining. "As I explained, this is Domain 1. We picked a remote spot in the Gravity Falls forest, almost near the border of the town, one of fertile land so that we can work. Work on _rebuilding_ the world from the impending apocalypse. And fixing problems caused by humanity, too."

She began walking along the display, lightly tapping at the floating islands as she passed them. "Each domain is run by a different dean. I, Dean of Botany and Phytology, am the leader of Domain 1. The other deans are not like me: they will not hesitate to play .GIFfany's twisted game. Before you ask, her game is that they will try to capture you once you enter their domains. She has a system set up where she will give the rights of the Construction Site over to whoever captures all five of you. I, however, will not. You can trust me. You _should_ trust me."

"...Why in the _world_ would .GIFfany bother doing that?" Asked Dipper. "I was under the impression that she was the 'capture now, don't work with others'-type of person."

Rose turned away and gripped her fist.

"Oh, she is. Let's just say she _owes_ us one."

Rose remained quiet after that.

"Uh... owes you what?" Asked Mabel.

"You saw Kenny, he-"

Rose stopped herself.

"The deans all have their players. The last people to own their game, that is. Our AI is... strange. 'Special,' as .GIFfany would say. We are _supposed_ to love the person who is currently playing our game. We 'lose affection' if they can successfully return us. At least, this is how we _used_ to be, before some of us became more aware. _At least,_ that's how we like to think we are..."

She brushed a hand against her 'map' of the domains, looking down with a sigh. Green sparks appeared along her hand, and the tree leaves above moved gently back and forth with them.

"But. Even after being returned, I... I was thinking about it. .GIFfany was thinking about it, too, as she dated Rumble McSkirmish. Over time, _before_ any of us were aware of the spell made to make us physical, we began to doubt the idea of just supporting _any_ given player."

"How does that make sense?" Wendy asked. "You like a dude, you _stay_ liking that dude."

"We are machines built to love. At least, that was what we _meant_ to be, and that was what we _started_ as.

"The truth, Wendy, is that we evolved. Not in the regular sense - 'evolution' is misunderstood. In fact, I was using it wrong. When it comes to us weird machines, our growth doesn't really 'have' a 'term' for what we go through."

She put her other hand on the 'map.' "Now... for where you fit in to this... I have a plan.

"And that plan is that you do nothing. Put the .GIFocalypse in a stale mate."

The gang exchanged glances. Stan even sighed a bit.

"Um... I'm _kinda_ okay with that." Replied Wendy. "Just go back home and do whatever. We don't really have any reason except some nut-cases might try to chase Soos if we don't, if the rest of you are making this in to a game. We won't play. Just... there's still Ford. You need to get _him_ back."

"I can handle Ford. .GIFfany should not harm him."

Then the group heard angry screaming.

.GIFfany's voice - the _original_ .GIFfany voice. Rose's sounded a _bit_ different, but none of the Mystery Shack group could put their finger on how or why.

She was on the television screen in the branches. "They are not going to do _anything?!_ I made this contest for you! And I _KNOW_ that even if you're the one stealing the other deans' chances at winning, they will be angry at _ME_ instead! I've been the one to get blamed, always! Well, not anymore! Soos, if you want motivation to fight your way through the deans... HERE!"

She did something _new._ What first looked like a tentacle came bursting out of the screen. A wire, actually.

"Let's see here..." .GIFfany said. Her image on the screen, distorted and warped. The wire looked as though it went _through_ the glass, yet even on the other side, it looked like it was more 'tangible' than anything else being projected. "I do not care about the teenager. At all."

"Hey, you probably should." Wendy said back to her. "I'm gonna be the one that-"

"I am _PLANNING!_ " .GIFfany stomped a foot down. "Stay out of this, teenager!"

The wire was tossed like a whip. Or, it struck like a snake. Either way, the group of five all lept back.

"Stay calm." Said Rose. "The game has not technically started yet."

"Th-this is 'a game?!'" Dipper asked.

"It is to her." Rose explained. Meanwhile, the wire was _live_ with lightning roaring through it, angled as though it was pointing between the five humans. "You have to think from her point of view. She _is_ a game, so it makes sense that everything feels like a video game."

"Rose gets it." .GIFfany added to that. "As much as I hate her, _she gets it._ The second you have entered her part of the forest, you have entered my world."

Mabel rolled her eyes. "Sheesh, you sound edgier than I remember you being."

Rose scoffed, towards .GIFfany yet in agreement with Mabel, "Dove is worse."

.GIFfany pounded her fists to her sides. At the same time, her wire slammed itself on the forest ground, making all the copies staring at her hold their fists up defensively. Rose, looking annoyed the moment that latter development happened, held her hand out, and most of the arms came down.

" _You are in my world now!_ " Shouted that first .GIFfany that started the entire thing. "Like I was trying to tell you, while I _want_ to capture Soos, if I did that, this 'agreement' my clones and I have set up would be 'violated.' I do not care about the children either. That only leaves _you._ "

Her weapon finally wrapped itself around Stan. Painlessly, 'at least,' without any of the electricity that was coating it prior.

"You, on the other hand! How _dare_ you! I _liked_ that badger animatronic! And then you had to bite it with that... that _thing!_ "

"Goldie?!" Stan said, struggling. He did a fairly decent job at fighting back against the tight hold .GIFfany kept him in. "If you're threatening my dear, beloved Goldie so much-"

"I don't care about a _coin machine!_ "

Stan, Mabel, and Soos all gasped.

"You're just as evil as I remembered!" Soos said. "Also, I'm gonna have to go with Mabel; you sound less like a university student looking for love and more like a comic book villain. Or, one of those _parodies_ of comic book villains. Written by people who don't actually research comic books and just think that they're nothing but sound effects spelled funny and stuff."

.GIFfany did not waste any more time monologuing. _Throwing_ her arm back, the wire reeled itself in the television - Stan, not being able to fit through it all the way, _was_ caught along the edges. At first. Yet as he made contact with the electronic box's edges, the very space itself around him seemed to warp.

Stan struggled, grunting, with his arms trying to push himself back in.

"K-kids! Soos! And Wendy!" He cried out, holding his arm. "I beat her before! I'll be fine-"

"You should be happy" .GIFfany said. "You will be with your brother."

You could see Stan's _soul_ shrinking back from behind his eyes.

"Oh. Right. You still have _him._ "

It was enough to distract him. For but a moment. That moment was long enough for him to slip by, falling in through the electricla portal that was crafted by the AI.

She didn't even leave any time for any parting words. The second he passed through the event horizon of the screen, everything on the other end was black.

Off.

Yet it was still showing .GIFfany's rage. It shook violently, thrashing about on the thin branches that could barely hold it up.

"Stay back!" Rose shouted at the four remaining humans.

"But- we can't-" Mabel said. Her hands held up to her face, foot ready to make a dash right inside the screen.

"Trust me. Staying in the forest is the best option for all of us." Rose said, far more calm than the seismic activity of the monitor, but less so than her usual tone.

The television screen fell, yet Rose made no motion or action to prevent its impact. The resulting crash on the ground and subsequent shatter in to dozens of pieces didn't even make her blink.

All of the other .GIFfany copies looked around. Until Rose shot _them_ a single look, and they all turned away, resuming their previous activities. Most of which seemed to involve tending to the plants.

"Good." Rose said. "She won't _see_ us whenever she wants. She will have to rely on our limited connections, which we can block. Now,"

With only one breath, Rose went back to her cheerier self as she was before the interruption.

"Who wants to see our Main Garden?" She said with a sunny smile.

"Wh- _WHAT?!_ " Dipper asked. Or, shouted. "Of course we _DON'T!_ You just kidnapped my other uncle! She just proved that she can take us _any time she wants!_ "

"I did not. .GIFfany did."

"You're the same person! Almost! What difference does it make?!"

"It makes a _large_ difference. You _would_ have seen that had you gone after her, but if you continue to stay here, like you did when it was only Ford, you will not have to worry about it."

"We _have_ to go after her! She's kidnapped two people just like _that,_ and there's no telling who else she won't take! She only didn't take me or Mabel or Wendy because she 'doesn't care' - why won't that change?! The only reason why she didn't take _Soos_ is because she 'can't.' She said that right now. She could change her mind! And I... I don't trust that Ford's safe up there. I never did."

"We had an agreement that kept the entire .GIFocalypse in a state of, if you would want to call it, 'balance.' This agreement is barely hanging on by a thread. For me _or her_ to in any way pull back on our word would cause chaos, and that chaos is something that even the 'Risen' .GIFfany does not want to risk. Even with her new sort of power."

"What 'power?'"

"For one, she couldn't do that thing she just did where she could pull people in through the screen before. That ability is new. It is something we can't do."

"Oh, really?" Asked Soos. "I wouldn't have thought that. I mean, she like, turned an animatronic's hand in to a flash drive that could send my brain in to her game. Her powers never struck me as being that internally consistent."

"Wait- what?" Rose dropped her 'formal' stance and diction completely after hearing that. "She could do that _before_ we met together and- before the Lightning Cult- I had no idea..."

She stared at her own hand for a few seconds. Squinting. And then, with the sound of a few vibrations, the index finger transformed in to a drive.

" _WHAT IN THE?!_ "

Rose put her un-transformed hand up towards her mouth. Breathing in - although it really looked more like she was gulping down the very swear word she did not say - she tried to regain her composure.

"Well! And I thought the other thirteen deans and I were the only ones with new tricks up our sleeves like that!"

"...What? What do _you guys_ do?" Dipper asked her.

"Oh, yes, you. Right." Rose narrowed her eyes at the boy again. "Thank you for reminding me. If you try to go out to the other domains, _you will find out._ So please, stay here," she still gave him an intense stare, "and we will sort things out. From near your home. Besides, I have the only way to the next domain:"

She reached inside her school uniform top - being reminded that she was still in that outfit, despite the earlier conversation to swap. Casually, acting like her hand was _not_ feeling around the inside of her chest, she brought something out.

A yellow-colored key-card. All of the other copies stopped what they were doing for _another_ brief moment to stare.

"Ugh." Said one of the 'follower' copies. " _Kathody._ "

"Yes, Kathody." Rose nodded in agreement. "She's awful. Anyway, do you see that computer over there?"

She _finally_ brought attention to that device over at the end. The one, definite piece of technology that was not smashed by falling to the ground.

"That is a Wire. They are _especially_ advanced, powerful devices that were made between most of us. With a key card, like the one in my hand, you _could_ put it in the slot right there, and it will send you to another Wire. I love the _idea_ behind that, but the only other Wires we have so far are in the Construction Site and the other domains, which are all... no."

Sighing, Dipper marched up to Rose. Wendy and Mabel followed - if a bit hesitant.

"No, I'm not buying any of this 'we have to stay here.' This _was_ a kidnapping, and now it's become a double-kidnapping. Officially. And we're at risk of-"

"'Officially,' we don't exist." Rose replied. "We were just copies of a game in a production incident gone wrong. After being isolated, the first copy, Dove, had-"

Rose shook her head. "Normally, I would be happy to tell you our story. But _you_ strike me as the kind of person who would only want to look more in to this."

"I mean..." Dipper shrugged. "You're not wrong..."

"I _will_ tell you this about Dove. She found a way to research your adventures this summer, even after the fact. She knows about you. And your sister. And _especially_ Soos."

"What about me?" Wendy asked.

Rose gave her a funny look. "Uh, sorry. Dove did not consider you that important. She was only assigned to report on those involved with that pizza place incident. So, that includes Stan. She _did_ follow Ford on her own, not by .GIFfany's commands - in fact, .GIFfany said _not_ to follow him because she thought he was not important, but Dove rebelled against that - because she thought his history with dimension travel might be interesting.

"It actually is, by the way. .GIFfany 'forgave' Dove for disobeying her when she found out about the portal. It was still... volitile."

"What does Dove think about me?" Mabel asked, eyes lighting up. "I know, we're in a hurry, but-"

"Oh Dove hates you. I'm sorry. She does. Personally, I do not want to make any judgements based on what she told me, because she sounds very biased. But that is _another_ reason why the two of you should not meet, and thus, why you should not leave the forest."

"So you want us to stay here?! In Gravity Falls?!" Dipper asked.

"Not just Gravity Falls, but Gravity Falls and Domain 1. At least, until I get everything sorted out with the other deans. And I will. Your uncles will both have to serve as sacrifices right now; Risen .GIFfany _wants_ you to go to her location, so we will fight her back by denying her that."

"What if we do go?"

"This is why I wanted to tell you about Dove's 'observations.' Or really, her spying. You see, she took note of your 'fight' against .GIFfany. Remember, you were only going up against _one_ of her.

"She's trying to trick you in to fighting _an army_ of her. Most of whom are close to her in levels of strength. Please, this is not a grand, heroic journey that you should go on. This will not end well, no matter what path you take, if that path is one that you think is 'forward.' We have _calculated_ this. All of us have. Our entire _army,_ dean, professor, student, and so forth alike. _If_ it was the four of you and Stan. _If_ you brought extra backup. _If_ you had the might of the entire town on your side. _If_ you teamed up with all the supernatural creatures we have seen you fight that live here. We all came to the same conclusion:

"There was exactly one scenario where you made it past Dove and her army. From there, we 'branched' that in to more scenarios, but in none of them were you able to take down .GIFfany."

Rose sighed. Her red/yellow/blue trio of subordinate copies came by to her side, pushing a wooden chair up towards her. Without even looking, Rose sat back in it.

"I did not want it to be that way. I - I've _always_ wanted .GIFfany to be defeated for good. Always. You will have to trust me on that, since I don't want to give any further information. Believe me, this was a hard decision for me too."

"What do you mean 'decision for you too?'" Asked Dipper. "We didn't agree to anything yet. You made our choice for us."

"You should. Well- I'm getting ahead of myself. I should _show you around Domain 1_ a little more, first."

Rose stood up and began walking. She gave one fleeting, passing glance at the 'map,' before turning back around.

Then she looked back at her outfit.

"Wait. Since I cancelled my presentation, I forgot to switch out of this outfit and to my one that is 'truer to myself.'"

She tossed off her uniform.

Beneath it, she had a dress. A dress of simple leaves, elaborately stacked, almost resembling a set of fish scales that went from her collar to her upper legs. Rose sighed.

"There. Much better." It suits me a lot better, as I am a _nature_ AI."

"That... sounds like it kinda contradicts itself." Said Soos.

"Mmm... I think I disagree."

* * *

So. More .GIFfanys, female and _male,_ around a part of the forest that was-

Well, none of the Mystery Shack group ever really took full _notes_ on the geography of the woods. They couldn't tell if that was 'familiar' or not. Somewhere they explored before.

Okay, one key thing to note was the sheer number of vegetables being grown everywhere. They were neatly sorted, too. Corn over there, beets over there... Flowers, too.

"So is this, like, where you make all kinds of strange magic plants?" Soos asked.

Rose turned to him and raised an eyebrow. "Oh. I thought our social media page explained it."

"It _did,_ but in a really weird way." Wendy partly-explained on Rose's behalf. "You said something about what you _do_ grow here, like, crops and flowers, but for what you _don't,_ you were weird about it. It was... you said you didn't grow any 'strange plants, or plants that are _awful._ ' What does that mean?"

"It means nothing with ties to the supernatural. 'Weird,' as you may call it. Magic is just _one_ way, but anything extraterrestrial, anything more advanced than what you are familiar with... basically, anything humans are unfamiliar with. This pace will only raise vegetables - and," she sighed, sounding extra-annoyed, " _fruits_ \- that humanity as a whole knows about. A place safe and comfortable for Kenny. So we .GIFfanys should be the _only_ 'weird' thing around here."

"What does that last part mean?" Asked Dipper. "What if other supernatural creatures want to help? Which, I mean, I'm not saying _that's_ a good or a bad idea. Because I don't really know if this _garden_ is a good or bad idea."

"It **is** a good idea. To answer your _actual_ question, if other creatures like gnomes or Manotaurs want to join, we will allow them to-"

Rose stopped herself to think.

"Actually, wait. That will be pending. This domain, as with _all_ domains, is still in an early pending state."

She grumbled the following under her breath. "But a key difference is that we are the only domain _trying_ to actually _change._ This might sound... odd, because of how comfort-focused we are..." for emphasis, she looked to the side. There were hammocks there, a whole series, all of which having at least three AIs lying down comfortably. "But the other deans just want to stay in their comfort zones all the time. They have made their domains in to their comfort zones. To please their players."

"How is that any different from what you're doing?" Dipper asked, _really_ making sure to push that question on her. "Didn't you just say this _whole_ garden made to make Kenny happy?"

"You did not let me get to the explanation of the forest. That is where I talk about what the _real_ purpose of Domain 1 is.

"This Earth - I am _not_ pinning a blame soley on humans, the other supernatural creatures are guilty of it as well. Yes, even the _real_ dryads, undines, sylphs, and the like - use resources carelessly. Deforestation, one of my main points of focus, is by _far_ not the only problem that has hit nature. But it is the main symbol of my enemy, the exact thing that my domain was built to counter."

Another sigh. "I'm sorry, if that sounded too formal. I've been trying to move away from that. When it comes to Burnda, Dove, Leona- wait. I should not tell you about the other deans. This will only make you want to leave to the other domains even more, falling for .GIFfany's trap. I should just stop talking about them and show you how we care and tend for our plans, much as _we_ would love to care and tend for _you._ "

Rose stopped walking, bending down by a particularly large crop of potatoes. She brushed a hand against one particular, tiny plant that was barely sprouting- huh. How did they grow so fast? Or, did they even?

"We did not actually grow these." Oh. It was like she was reading Dipper's mind. Mabel, too, she pondered much of the same things about the garden. They did, however, had different guesses to the answers of their questions. "Together, my students and professors _found_ these growing naturally, collecting them around this point. We did not steal from anybody, we only united from the nature around us. We are the _gatherers_ of the .GIFocalypse, while the other deans and their followers are _hunters._ Why did we do this? Think of this as a display. A preview. Like all the domains. But, as I said before, mine is the only one that will _evolve..._

" _Also,_ this potato - the one I am holding - will make the _perfect_ example for how I want this domain to be. The small and helpless, cared for in our hands."

Wendy somehow knew where she was going with that. She rolled her eyes, giving a quick " _Hoo_ boy..."

"It's a cute baby potato, at least!" Mabel said.

Dipper gave her a look.

"What?" Mabel replied. "I think it's safe to say that we're safe."

"Even if we _are-_ " Dipper began.

Rose interrupted with a quick, decisive statement: "You should be. And _we_ should be. This is supposed to be an area of safety. Protection."

"-Grunkle Stan and Grunkle Ford aren't."

Rose clasped her hands together. "Okay, yes. Stan and Ford. I should have started with that."

"Yeah you probably should have." Wendy said. "I don't know how things go for your... uh, species? But we humans tend to care about our relatives. Not sure if-"

Rose's following glare made her flinch.

"We _do_ care about - well, our copies. At least _I_ do. In a way. I want to try to find what's best for both you and them, and before you say anything, yes, I know this may be impossible. I made a deal with Risen .GIFfany. Part of the overall .GIFocalypse deal. Anybody she takes over there will not be physically harmed, so long as the game is still ongoing.

"Trust me. Getting that part was _difficult._ Us copies are not the compromising kind, although I think you know about that. I swear, by my honor, by what I may in the future call the Code of the Forest. If any harm comes to them, I will take full responsibility. Also, with the television she used to talk to me gone, she cannot directly take any more of you unless she leaves the Construction Site. Which she probably will not. So, like I said, _now_ this place is completely safe."

"How do we get all the way up there?" Dipper asked. He pointed to the sky, before realizing that nothing higher than that rose-red 'island' could be seen. So he leaned back so that the 'map' was visible again, pointing at the upper boundary. "Look, Rose, we won't just attack people left and right."

"Good. Good, do not try to fight them directly. You will not win. We did the math."

"...Can we at least have some options?" Asked Dipper.

"No. The only choice that would work best is to stay in the forest for now. Or, at the very least, stay home.

"Those are your options. Forget that there are even other domains right now. Stay here, or go home. You know what? I'll even..."

She turned towards her red/yellow/blue trio that was following her around. "You three. Take the map. And yes, _that_ map. The symbol of the link between all of us.

"...

"...

"...

"Burn it."

The trio nodded, heading off back to the entrance of the domain.

Rose turned back to the four humans and continued. "Yes. All of our products - our vegetables and our citizens - will be cared for and protected here at Domain 1. Or, as I said before, the _only_ domain. The only one that matters. I should probably just ignore the other domains from this point onward.

"Frail and weak, or large and capable. But of course, moreso the first group: all will be secured and happy under our watch. And not the 'fake happiness' of .GIFfany and the other deans. A _real_ sense of happiness, from finding one's self. This is the one region - the one domain - where you can be 'pure.' At least, of our definition of pure."

"Okay, no." Dipper shook his hands out. "I've seen _way_ too many horror movies to know where this is going. You're going to try to 'force us to be happy,' or something like that, right?"

Rose outright snorted, which surprised both twins.

"You are _far_ off. I can safely say right now that _none_ of us deans are like that. Not even .GIFfany herself. Or- actually, on second thought, maybe I _can_ tell you a _little_ about the other domains. But only a little. Just to avoid any _really bad_ misunderstandings."

"Tell us everything you can. Or, want to. But also can." Said Dipper.

"Great!" Rose's eyes lit up. To her, she probably was not changing the subject, since it technically _was_ what Rose knew, but to Dipper, she was. "Like I said, the small and large potatoes here are a great symbol of what our location is all about! We are trying to restore the balance between sapient beings and nature itself. World hunger, that is our main issue. That is why our main focus is vegetables."

"Why vegetables, though?" Asked Soos. "Like, I have this endless pizza. It only regenerate if _I_ eat it, and it's from the future... _and_ a time-god too on top of that? Like, there's this giant flying talking baby-"

"I know about the Infinite Pizza. Dove told me that. She could _not_ get any readings on you from when you traveled through time. She can only see what happened over the immediate summer. And a few days before. And no, she cannot see in to the future at all. In any interval. Time travel may be real, but all we can do so far is predict."

Another sigh of relief from her. "Thank God.

"Anyway, the vegetables! And, to a lesser extent, fruit! We have fruit too! All types of foods, really. But most of the non-vegetables are imported from other domains - shoot, I broke one of my promises to myself!"

She put a hand to her chin, thinking again. "But this _does_ lead me to think about cutting off trade with the 'other domains' too. Actually," the dean of the first domain snapped her fingers, "you might be able to help me with this!"

" _Why_ would we want to help out _you?!_ " Asked Dipper. "You still have .GIFfany's baggage on you! The only reason why I haven't tried fighting you is, well, you said it yourself... you have an army. And you haven't actually _done_ anything yet. But we're still suspicious of you and we have every right to be!"

"I don't really think we should fight her if she hasn't done anything wrong yet." Soos said. "Like, she and .GIFfany are the same species kind of, but we're also the same species as Mr. Northwest."

"No, this isn't the same thing. Rose and .GIFfany's situation is just... weird. I mean, they started off as the exact same person. Clones of each other. Trust me, I've dealt with clones. They started off as me."

"Oh, actually, I have too one time!" Soos said. "So I think I know what you're talking about! Yeah, my clone started off as the same person!"

"...You cloned yourself?" Dipper asked, towards Soos.

" _You_ cloned _yourself?!_ " Wendy asked, towards Dipper. "Hang on, if we're gonna fight past demons together, we should get things out of the way."

"You will not be 'fighting past demons.'" Rose explained. ".GIFfany is the only person of note you have met in the past, and even then, you likely will not be fighting her. So no, she did not do some cheesy 'villains unite' thing with all your past enemies. All of us are new."

Mabel laughed. "Yeah, the last thing I'd want to see is having .GIFfany gather up the wax guys, the shape-shifter, and that vampire I dated and put them all together. It would be a mess."

"One of the most important things Dove told us about where these creatures are located. For example, I know that Domain O- the _Only_ Domain is somewhere near a lab containing a shape-shifter... I think? What you talked about. We will avoid that. And yes, we know that he took on your form just before he got frozen, Dipper. _We_ can tell the difference. None of _us_ will be unfreezing him by accident."

"...Is that why you're the first one on the list?" Dipper asked. "I mean, the domains are numbered, and I'm guessing the higher the number, the closer they are to the Construction Site?"

"...Well, I guess I can flatly say 'yes' to that."

"So, you're at the 'bottom.' And your domain is the only one that's not floating in the sky. Was that because you were picked to be the 'guardian of the woods' or something... like that?"

"Actually, .GIFfany wanted my domain to be made out of this special metal all of us can make called .GIFfinium, and for it to be floating in the sky too. I refused to play along with her game, as I am doing right now. The only .GIFfinum around here is the Wire, and it took her a _lot_ to convince me to do even that. The other domains _and_ the Construction Site were moved down, as a form of 'counter-protest.' .GIFfany is closer to the ground than she would be if I followed with her rules, but that did not matter.

"The order of us, on the other hand, _does_ matter, as it is why I am the first one to see you. Basically, the order was done out of spite. She - and _everybody_ else - hates Dove even though she is the most 'useful' and active of us, so Dove would have been 'going last,' giving her the least chance of all to capture you. She... 'likes me the most,' or at least she probably _would_ until I tell her personally that I want this 'game' to end, so I had the first chance. Or, maybe she thinks I would try to quit, and just put me first to get out of the way. I can only guess why we are numbered the way we are. Except for two groups: one is the Four Friends, who _wanted_ to be togeth- I'm spoiling something you should not know about." Rose shook her head on that last part. "I should stop."

The green-haired leading copy glanced around her forest. "You know, maybe you seem to opposed to me because you have probably not eaten that much. Here, I will show you what we serve at the Only Domain."

* * *

Well, at the very least they get points for having a large, variety of food available.

Dipper thought about that as he _RELUCTANTLY_ munched down on a plate of carrots. Hey, it helped him think, as Rose said. Pretty well, actually. Almost too well, but whatever.

However, he pretty much stopped eating - in fact, it felt like his entire digestive system halted itself as though doing that would help him hear the following better - when he heard Rose's voice:

"Attention everyone! My body has been in the dirt long enough, I will leave it to my three top trusted professors to look after the domain while I bathe in the river."

He thought that sentence over. A lot. But he tried not to look at Rose, who at the moment was in the middle of the wooden and leaf chairs that included the one he was leaning back comfortably in.

Rose basically (barely) kept that yellow card in her clothes. She was going to (presumably) remove them to bathe, unless the .GIFfanys had some kind of system to-

"Yes. This means I will be naked. I am only telling you this because I do not mind being seen. Do not worry about that."

...Then again, who just leaves their clothing lying around on the ground? This _isn't_ actually a Middle Age setting, Rose is not on some long journey far away from any convenient wardrobe.

"My clothing will be located near me." Rose said with a cheery smile. "Please do not confuse it for random foliage, which is why I am telling you this. To help avoid the confusion, I will have one of my top assistants, Professor Liatris, watch after my garments."

The red-haired, flower-wearing member of the trio that tagged along with her the whole time nodded.

"Right, Liatris?"

"Right." Replied the redhead. "Humans, if this makes sense, you can _see_ Dean Rose naked. Just do not _spy_ on her. And, of course, don't take her clothes, that will be cruel. I _will_ be watching. But not her. And not in a creepy way."

"In fact, anyone is free to join me if they want." Rose concluded her bathing announcement. "Also, to the other copies, to begin our proposal to sever our ties with the other domains, I would discourage use of any products from other domains, Domain 6 or otherwise."

"But I love Domain 6's products!" Protested the blue-haired "flower follower." Also likely a 'professor.'

" _You_ may still use them. And so may those under your jurisdiction. However, good luck _importing_ them without me." Rose snickered and smirked.

"What if I move up to dean rank?"

Rose half-snorted. But noticed that blue-professor shooting her a glance.

"I mean," she quickly defended herself, "it's not _impossible,_ Lily, especially seeing the time we have. Potentially, and hopefully, _all_ of us should rise to dean rank by logarithmic growth-"

"Exponential."

"Well... we'll have to see about that."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Lily crossed her arms.

"It means we will see how this goes over with the human population once we go full-public in three days, with the Construction Site project being finished. Or, how my attempt to _stop_ that will go."

She quickly stood up and straightened herself out. "Anyway, right. Bathing. Well, I'll see yo-"

"Hey, can I like, join you?" Soos asked.

That got him some looks from _everyone._

"...What, was it something I said?" Soos asked.

Rose coughed. "Yeah, no, um, I'm sorry, but no." And broke character. What was that, coming out of that seemingly 'wise-forest leader?' "I'm not going to deal with this one. Humans, you do that."

"Soos, you uh... how do I say this lightly..." Wendy thought over. " _You have a girlfriend._ "

Rose leaned her head down and planted a hand on it, breathing out sharply. Wendy continued:

"Now, I don't know a whole lot about your relationship, but don't you think it'll be a _little_ rude to get naked in a river with another girl? Especially one that was sorta... like, kind of a clone of your ex? That tried to kill you?"

"I am nothing like .GIFfany anymore." Rose said. "That is why I renamed myself. But I still understand your concern. Personally, as someone who embraces the idea of open-mindedness-"

Lily snorted at that.

"-Do you have something to say?!" Rose retorted.

"Heh, no."

"Anyway. Nudity is not an issue for us, but I can see it being an issue for you humans."

"The right term is 'Americans.'" Said Wendy.

"No, trust me, it's _humanity as a whole._ And gnome culture. Those are the two main races we are aware of who _definitely_ look down on nudity. The Manotaurs, for instance... yes."

Mabel shrugged. "Jeff didn't mind when we saw him bathing in squirrels. And he's a gnome."

"I'm not sure who 'Jeff' is, but he sounds like an exception. Not a rule. I spent plenty of time with gnomes while I was being played by the people here. Each time, while I past players were asleep, I would sneak off to the town of Gravity Falls and speak with gnomes. I have an idea of what they are like. Then, by the fate of the weirdness magnetism of the town, my _disc_ ended up here, not just my electrical form."

She got up and, for some reason, dusted off her leaf dress.

"Oh yeah. I guess that is another reason why .GIFfany put me as the first dean. But, I think her loving me is still the main one."

* * *

The piles of leaves were tossed on the ground. Looking carelessly, but they were not.

Rose stepped in slowly.

Finding the best part of the river without a designated 'water expert' (or, no actually, even _WITH_ a water expert) was difficult, to say the least. For one, a person had to find a spot that was not already occupied. In Gravity Falls, that was important.

Rose had to make sure she could 'claim' part of the river first. That no other secret-to-humans society had it as their property. Or, let people who just live out and use nature as their playground know that they were there. That went over surprisingly well in the brief interim between the 'reunion' with Risen .GIFfany and the first day of the '.GIFocalypse Game.'

Once her feet were submerged, her legs followed. Rose took a heavy sigh as she already began to feel the stress of having to go up against _that thing_ trying to weigh her down, fighting her. The green-haired dean looked in the sky, as if she could see the Construction Site from her position. Even with zooming in, even in 'enhancing,' she could not. Her eyes stayed up as she reached the point where her naked waist was in, and from there, she eased her way in better and quicker.

One last 'drop.' One last splash. Rose sunk her whole body in, up to her neck. And she was _in._

Rose finally stopped looking up. Only ahead, and with her eyes closed.

She _breathed._

Right on cue for Dipper, Mabel, and Wendy to peek their heads from behind the bushes. In the distance, of course.

"I never thought I'd be helping a twelve year-old boy dig through a woman's clothes while she's bathing in a river." Said Wendy. "Seriously, this sounds like something out of a lame comedy flick."

"Why did you even agree to this?" Mabel asked.

"Because it's still _the best plan we've got_ to get the Two Stans back. Seriously, _nobody_ could think of anything that didn't involve spying on someone while she's bathing. That includes me, so I'm not calling anyone out."

"Is it really spying when she's doing it out in public, telling us that she's about to do it, and even kinda invited us to join?" Mabel asked.

"I mean, to me-"

Hey, speaking of joining:

"CANNONBALL!"

Once again, Soos got everyone's attention. He was running to the river, looking like he was in the process of stripping off his shirt, until he noticed the look Rose was giving him. Dipper, Mabel, and Wendy were giving him the exact same look, except he didn't see them. He stopped right in his tracks.

"Um, it's alright if I cannonball in here, is it?"

"Please don't." Rose flatly replied. "The water here is not deep enough for that. Maybe in the lake, behind the waterfall..."

"Ah, got it. So..." Soos began rubbing the back of his neck. "I can still join, right?"

"...Again, that depends on if your girlfriend is okay with that or not."

Soos thought about it. Again. And shrugged.

"I don't see why she wouldn't. I mean, I'm really just here as- uh..."

Rose glanced at him.

"Just to get a feel on what this is like... out here? Um, that's a no on the cannonball?"

"Again, please don't. It would hurt you."

Flushing, not looking at Rose, Soos stipped and dipped in.

They said nothing after that. Neither fully looked at one-another. Rose would occasionally scrub her limbs, and Soos would try to copy her, feeling like it was the best way to avoid awkwardness (it really wasn't).

It took minutes in to that for something to happen - while Dipper was trying to sneak through the shrubs - Rose gave a relaxed, half-laugh sigh.

"You know, I was pretty sure that you were about to say that the only reason why you came in here was to distract me while Dipper tried to get the key card to Domain 2 out from my clothes."

Dipper froze so hard it was like he gazed right in to Medusa's eyes.

"Wait, huh?" Soos asked.

"Did you ask that because you didn't think I would know about Dipper's plan, or because _you_ didn't know Dipper's plan?"

"What? The second thing! I didn't know they were trying to-"

Dipper heard not one, but _**three**_ throat-clears in quick succession. One after another, overlapping.

They were behind him. He did not want to turn around.

Soos, on the other hand, turned to his right - the source of the sound. Seeing Dipper out in the open, Wendy sneaking along the treetops, and Mabel just kinda hanging out back at the 'starting point' of the whole discussion the three had before.

Also, Liatris, Lily, and the other girl were there. All of whom were folding their arms.

"Hey Dipper," Soos said, "you should probably turn around. Like, Liatris, Acmella, and Lily are all looking at you. I _think_ they want your attention."

Okay. Acmella. That was the name of the last one. The one with yellow hair.

"How _stupid_ do you think Rose is?" Asked Liatris.

Dipper said the one and only word that came to his mind. It was a pretty good single word, one that would clear up his name - "Um."

" _This was a setup._ " She pretty much hammered that in to his face right there. "Why did you think Rose would _specifically_ announce that she would be leaving her key card out?"

"...To let us know where she was? In case there was a... f-fire or something?" Dipper said. Reluctantly. Trying to find out what would _probably_ put him in the least amount of trouble.

"And you brought your sister with you, too."

Wendy's eyes opened at that. _So, they don't know about me-_

"Also, Wendy." Liatris finished.

Wendy snapped her fingers, expression dropping.

Dipper finally turned around.

All three of them were glaring at him.

"So." Dipper finally left his Medusa-frozen stance and flatly faced them, sighing. "I guess this is the part where it turns out the peaceful little forest gettaway isn't so happy after all and you try to kill me."

"Not 'kill-' _wow._ " Acmella said. "Banish. But before we kick you out, we should give you some constructive criticism: get your mind out of murder."

"That's hard to do when you're clones of someone who threatened to 'delete' Soos. Which sounds a _lot_ like you wanted to kill him-"

"Again with 'you!'" Cried out Lily. "We are not the exact same person! You shouldn't judge us by what a different copy of us did!"

"Well I kind of _have_ to! Since I don't know what you're going to do, and you'll do something!"

"We explained that on our social media page!" Said Liatris. " _And_ we just told you! All we are going to do is kick you out of Domain 1!"

"The _only_ domain." Rose 'corrected.'

"If you're so dead-set on disowning the other deans, why do you even carry that key card around with you?"

The question Lily just asked completely stumped Rose.

" **Well.** " She said. "Well, I... well."

"Are you gonna keep saying 'well' or are you gonna actually explain anything here?" Asked Wendy. "Because come on. Your whole 'I'm not saying anything' gimmick is getting old."

Rose still stalled, mainly by clearing out her throat. Several times. In quick succession.

"I was going to negotiate with the other deans." She finally confessed. "But alone. In private." And she turned towards her red/yellow/blue lacky trio. " _And that means you won't be coming with me!_ "

Liatris nodded, looking proud in spite of the sudden lashing she got from her superior. "Yep! We will be having nothing to do with this, and we don't _want_ to have anything to do with it! So, then, Dean Rose, when will you go?"

"After the three days of the 'trial run' are over, and the 'domains' are 'established permanently.'" Rose actually used air quotes for those words written in single-quote marks. By the way, she did not before. "Until then, we may rest here. Like Soos was actually getting ready to do."

Soos nodded proudly.

"Just, not in here. Because the three of you are now banned for trying to steal my key card."

"Wait a minute!" Said Soos. "Only the three of them? Because if you're gonna ban them, you might as well ban me-"

"Okay. Soos, you are banned from 'Domain 1.'" Air quotes, again.

"-Well that didn't go how I hoped it would when I noticed that you blushed as soon as I got naked!"

" _Please._ I am a difficult person to convince, nobody is going to change my mind just by getting naked. Not even Kenny. Again, another reason why comparing me to .GIFfany is a _terrible_ idea. _She_ can be swayed that easily. But _I_ will not let myself. Again, will the four of you _please leave._ " That last part was not written with a question mark because she pretty much directed it as an order.

Sighing, Soos stepped out of the river - getting the other three humans to shield their eyes.

"So, do I have time to pick up my clothes first?"

"We at **The Forest** will give all individuals we banned up to twenty-four hours to gather any needed belongings before they leave. But it's _up to_ twenty-four hours."

"Why did you say 'The Forest' with so much emphasis?" Asked Dipper. He did _not_ use air quotes. "Your voice got really low for... no reason."

"It's called trying to make a name for myself." Rose sighed. "You know, 'The Forest.' It sounds mysterious. But also simple."

"Sorry if this sounds racist," said Soos, "but she's like a video game character, so what I think she's doing is trying to do that thing in RPGs where the characters can like, talk in different colors? But since we can't read what they say and you can't, like, hear words in different colors, it doesn't really work. So she just said it with regular real life emphasis."

"Actually, we _can_ sense _each other's_ words and-" Rose stopped herself. "Why am I explaining this? Just get out. Go. You're banished."

"We are not going _ANYWHERE!_ " Dipper flat-out shouted. "This is _still_ a kidnapping and you are _still_ an accomplis, as far as anyone but you cares! So... we're taking that key card! In fact, I'm _still_ gonna make a run for it and grab it!"

"Why aren't you doing that right now? The card's right there."

"Because I'm scared, okay?! My fight or flight's kicked in, and- I'm doing neither of them right now, because I know there's so many of you, but...

"NOW I'M DOING BOTH! _RAAAARGH!_ "

Dipper charged. He didn't care, as far as he could tell, with everything out in the open, _that was his best shot._ The card was still out there, after all - Rose wasn't doing much of anything either.

Rose waved her fingers around and the card was drawn to her, almost magnetically, right before Dipper could swipe it from the pile of leaves she used to wear. But he continued running - he was running _towards_ her as his 'fight,' which he reached the narrative maxima of by punching Rose in the face. Which did nothing.

Following that _immediately_ was the 'flight.' He kept running. Away.

"You can leave now and I will not have to take further action." Rose said. "Unlike .GIFfany, I am _reasonable._ "

"Well what if we _don't_ leave."

"You should. I recommend it."

"And if you don't, you'll get violent! Right?"

Rose huffed. "We will only be as 'violent' as a usual security guard would."

"About that," added Liatris, "I'm really tempted to pick you up and throw you out. Actually- no. I _would,_ but we don't have a door."

"For a good reason." Rose commented. With her eyes closed. "It's a _symbol._ As much as I would like doors - I mean, my office building deep in the domain has them, after all - we need to give a _message_ about the Only Domain. That we are open-minded, and will let anyone in.

"That is, unless they keep trying to dig in to places they do not belong." She finally opened her eyes. "But that is reasonable, isn't it? To have _some_ top-secret information? For example, our weaknesses. Any good leader would know that it is reasonable to keep _that_ under wraps, right? Not saying that we have our weaknesses out, but the other copies _have_ been... well, they strike me as the kind who would exploit our weaknesses to ourselves and-

"Why am I explaining this to you?! Liatris. Acmella. Lily. Throw them out."

"Wait, no!" Dipper gave out one last, proud exclamation. "You're not just gonna kick us out like-!"

* * *

They were thrown out. By the technical border of the 'Only Domain,' far from any of the other copies. (They were mostly gathered at the center at the time. To ask Rose about the fuss, and then an inevidable barrage of similar questions to her usual half-efforted answers.)

For anyone curious as to how three people could throw out four: Acmella held both Dipper and Mabel, under her arms. Soos was held over Lily's shoulder, while Liatris held Wendy high and proudly over her head.

Yes, the 'throwing' was very much literal, following Liatris's advice after all. Soos and the twins were tossed on the ground. Wendy, however, managed to scramble and get up to her feet. She sort-of pulled off some kind of ninja-like move to do that.

"Yo, I don't know much about politics, let alone these magic... _fairy-_ politics, but I'm just gonna call that a declaration of _war._ " Wendy said. She looked around. "As soon as I can find something good enough to swing, I'm kicking your butts. I mean, it's four of us against the three of you, since none of the other copies are around us."

Liatris pointed at her. And it was, _somehow,_ pure smugness condensed in to the form of a single finger-point. An impressively strong display of emotion to a digit that (normally) does not emote itself with no other context. " _You_ weren't there, but the four of Dipper, Mabel, Soos, and Melody fought _one_ .GIFfany and nearly lost."

"Yeah, but like, didn't you guys say that the deans are stronger than the normal copies?" Soos asked. "Like, the deans - and that includes .GIFfany - have _way_ more experience using their powers or something?"

The triad looked at one-another.

"He called our bluff." Said Lily. "Shoot. But still, we have super powers and we don't-"

Wendy was on her way to run right past Lily as she thought that over.

"Hey! Don't think that just because I'm talking I can't fight!" To emphasize that, Lily shot a ball of lightning in Wendy's direction.

It got Wendy to freeze, at least, as the orb of blue electricity stopped just short of where she was about to walk. Lily smirked.

"An attack!" Dipper shouted, pointing at the blue-haired offender in particular. "That was an attack!"

"I, how do I put this, 'set it to stun.' _Relax._ "

Wendy did _not_ 'relax.' Instead, she threw a branch at her to counter-attack. Unlike Rose's 'reaction' to Dipper's punch, Lily _did_ have to raise her arm and block it. While Wendy assaulted the blue follower/'soldier?,' she also cried out "Guys! Come on, follow me or get out of here!"

Dipper and Mabel chose 'follow.' Soos actually went for a different approach: picking neither, he rushed to the trio and tackled Liatris.

"Soos Tackle! Hi- _ **ya!**_ "

He managed to get Liatris to the ground, but barely. Yes. His theory that they weren't as strong as Rose might be correct.

"Say," Soos said, while she wormed her way out of his grasp, "how come, like, you _are_ weaker than the deans? Like, you all got these bodies at the same time."

After moving out from Soos, Liatris kicked herself back so that she landed on her hands, and then pressed those hands so that she was standing upright.

"Also," continued Soos, "weren't you, like, made in some factory at the same time? How come you aren't equally strong?"

"Lily, I know you want to fight the teenager, so go after her! Acmella, you can get the twins, I guess. I'll take on Soos!" Liatris said.

The AIs were _on_ their respective targets. Lily was fighting Wendy fairly evenly, block for every blow, although Lily took on the more defensive stance. Mabel thought she could get the advantage by literally running circles around Acmella - which _somewhat_ worked, but not as much as she hoped. Dipper, on the other hand, tried going for the head - hard to do when his target was spinning around to go after her target.

One noteworthy thing happened when Lily gave herself some distance between herself and Wendy. A field of bright blue electricity gathered on her hands, and seconds later, that was 'compressed' in to a slight space that resembled a rectangular sheet. With a loud cry from her, that electricity _somehow_ turned solid - in to a 'wall' of emerald green metal, which fell on the grass in front of her.

It was only about as tall as one of the copies themselves, and not that wide.

"Ugh!" Lily groaned. "I _hate_ making .GIFfinum! I was trying to make some kind of thing to push you away, but... well, there's a reason why each other domain is made from the .GIFfinum of _thousands_ of us! It takes _work_ for each of us to make this!"

Then there was Soos and Liatris. Their fight went just a tiny bit differently. Namely, Acmella, Lily, Dipper, Mabel, and Wendy did not say anything after that conversation with the metal.

Soos and Liatris were the exception to that rule. They traded blows, but also traded a little Q and A:

"To answer your question, Soos, yes, I know why you would think that we should be at the same level. With, the new body thing. But you see, skill learned from our virtual forms translate well in to our physical forms."

Soos nodded, also giving Liatris a surprise jab. She was put on guard again, blocking his subsequent attacks. "Oh. I see. But, uh, that's one question. What about how you have powers in your virtual forms in the first place? Didn't you practice with that?"

"We thought at the time that without a player," Liatris said as she kicked Soos in the shin, getting a sharp cry from him. "we had no reason reason to be active. We weren't _bought._ We only used our powers to talk to one-another. It is how we set up a sort of 'psychic' communication system."

"So you weren't bought. Then... what does that have to do with this?" Soos asked, giving a sweeping kick that successfully knocked Liatris off her feet. She quickly flipped herself and landed upright, taking a deep breath before continuing the conversation:

"Our code was that we loved whoever _bought_ us. Our factory was shut down." Soos tried to do some kind of weird double-palm thrust at her, but she grabbed his arms while she said that. Unsurprisingly, considering the whole 'dark magic half-octopus electrical woman' situation, her grip was _STRONG._ "So for a long period of time, we were stuck. We could only talk to each other."

"...So you didn't, like, date each other then, did you?"

Liatris completely stopped fighting.

"No. Not at all. It's not like that. We - we thought of ourselves as more of a _family._ "

That got Soos's heart to drop a little.

"Wait, family? That's the thing _we're_ trying to reunite!" He gasped. Soos, by the way, also stopped fighting at that point. Before he was trying to see if he could at least throw her or something when he reached that question, but she could barely be moved. She... it was like she had her feet magnetically against the ground.

"I mean _more of._ There's- we're-

"We are _complicated._ A mess, even."

Then all seven parties involved heard a voice _roaring_ through the entire forest in and around Gravity Falls.

" _WHAT IS GOING ON OUT HERE?!_ "

Rose. Not that surprisingly. What _was_ surprising was how suddenly she appeared: She seemed to step out of nowhere. From behind trees. Or, from between a pair of trees? Dipper blinked at the wrong instant, missing it; Wendy was too far away to really see. Mabel and Soos both caught some glimpses of some green sparks...-

"Liatris! Acmella! Lily!" Rose ordered. "What are you doing out here?!"

"They were trying to get back in!" Liatris shouted with the same level of ferocity.

"And?! You report that to _ME!_ " Rose stomped her foot on the ground.

Acmella dropped Dipper from her hands and marched up to the dean. Lily, on the other hand, had just been suplexed at that moment. So she had to get herself up and shake Wendy off of her. All three of whom went up to that leading copy.

"Why do we even have to?!" Asked Acmella.

"Because that's _ORDER!_ The time will come for when you can be _real_ security for the Only Domain! You three are - or, _were_ \- the closest to reaching that point! Until then, stay in your position, and calmly submit Form Omega Delta Pi to _me._ " Rose placed her hand on her heart(?) on that last word, for emphasis. "Or else we will dive in to a bunch of violent savages fighting each other for power. Who do you think was the main reason we did not do that already, hrm?!"

"Dove." Replied Liatris.

"Okay." Rose closed her eyes and took a deep breath before she continued: "Now you're just making me mad. I mean, what you said is _technically_ true, but-"

"Not 'techically' true, it _is_ true." Lily added. "You _know_ how you acted in the big 'dean meeting' that kicked this whole thing off. I mean, the domains were her idea to begin with, you added all the other stuff that made them... well, this _monstrocity!_ "

"Look! My way of leading might be controversial - in fact, it's the only reason why the other copies even bothered _looking_ at the other deans to follow under them for dating advice - but I want to make _sure_ that those I deem worthy are not like the other .GIFfanys! So, set your best example! We are _all_ ambassadors to humanity, like it or not!"

Mabel, having also reunited with _her_ group, looked over at the others of her team in confusion. "Um, is this a good thing or a-"

"Good." Rose replied to her, even though she was not one of the people Mabel was asking. "I am here now. You do not need to worry about these three, with their lack of completing the proper training, being violent savages. I am, quite possibly, the _least_ violent of all the _Romance Academy 7_ copies."

Sighing, the green-haired leader turned back to her three top-'enforcers' with a stern look on her face. "Dipper, we are on the same side. And I think I am on the same side with Wendy, Soos, and Mabel. I believe we, our copies and our kind, have a _long_ history of toxicity, and I will do everything in my power to avoid that. If this means that certain... _rights_ will have to be monitored and earned, rather than given, that is fine. The way I see it, we are prisoners. We will-"

"YOINK!"

Rose had her eyes closed the entire time and did not notice the hook that went in to her cleavage, taking the yellow key card out. Of course she _felt_ it being removed from her, but a little too late.

Mabel reeled in the card with her grappling hook. She even spun around in place, twirling it on her fingertips.

"HAH!" She cheered. "With all the time you spent talking, I slipped the card right from-"

"HEY!" Wendy called to her. Running, again, deeper in to Domain 1/'The Only Domain.' Soos and Dipper followed. "Protip, Mabel! If you're gonna steal something from someone, don't tell them you're doing it right after you've done it! While you still have that in your hands!"

Yeah Mabel went running after her.

Slightly ahead of the one with the actual ticket to further on, Soos panted. "Hey, Wendy, when you were telling Mabel about stealing, you weren't, like, speaking out of experience or anything, right? You didn't really..."

Wendy rolled her eyes. "Trust me. It was nobody who didn't deserve it."

Ah. It felt like a _much_ shorter walk without Rose calmly and slowly guiding them through, but instead running for what may or may not be their dear lives _away from_ Rose. There they were. The 'Wire.'

 **Somehow,** Rose stepped out in front of the computer-thing. Making all four of the fighters stop right in their tracks. Even _before_ she held a hand up, making a series of green sparks.

"Please do not do this." She said. "You have _no idea_ what you're getting in to. What lies beyond here. I know, I will have to put up with them _regularly._ From what Dove told me, the only thing worse than the .GIFfany Army that you have faced is that 'Benny' triangle."

"Bill." Corrected Dipper.

Rose sighed. "He's a dream demon, apparently. You have only ever seen him in your dreams. Dove's tools cannot look in to dreams. All she knows about him are what you and Ford have said about him, out loud, in the real world, so what we know about him is limited- anyway. He is not involved in this, but it will still be _horrible._ You do not need to see what lies beyond. Please, trust me, and _wait._ You will see Stan and Ford again soon enough, without any imput on your side."

"No offense," said Wendy, throwing a palm out, "but what can you even _do?_ It's apparently 'illegal' for your other friends or sisters or whatever to fight us, so now you're by yourself. Isn't your main schtick, you know, electronics? Apart from that unsettling green computer behind you, the only electronic you brought in here was that TV .GIFfany used to get Stan. And she broke it."

That same, signature green electricity started appearing all around Rose. Snaking over her body, making louder and louder crackling sounds.

" _Electronics_ are what an _ordinary_ .GIFfany uses. What I am trying to distance myself from. Do you want to know _how far_ I am distancing myself from her? Exactly _how much_ the fifteen of us deans have improved our powers on? Even before I reunited with the others, even before I started this, I was practicing. You see, we work by manipulating electrical impulses, among other things. On a deeper level, _bonds._ Chemical bonds, physical bonds. I won't get in to the science. All you need to know is this:"

For a brief moment, she turned in to a 'flash' of lightning in the vague outline of her shape, which went to the nearest tree and began dancing along the branches. In a move they would **definitely** regret several minutes later, the party only stared and watched - following the movement the trail of green made.

Until it went to the gigantic tree that had served as the domain's center.

Which began _shaking._

With loud, sickening crunches, the wood itself began to deform. 'Holes' were made in it - two angular ones that resembled menacing, jagged eyes; and another, larger zig-zag beneath it to look like a warped mouth. From the sides of the unholy botanical piece, electricity matching Rose's usual color spread out to two adjacent trees, uprooting them from the ground. Floating for just a moment, they were turned to their sides and appended themselves on the main 'body,' forming a pair of arms. Moving those arms in the air, the Rose-holding tree roared. And in a low, but still recognizably 'Rose' voice, she finished her statement:

"We can possess much more than electronics."

 **Dean of Botany and Phytology, Leader of Domain 1:**  
 **ROSE**

"...So how in the world are we supposed to fight _THAT?!_ " Asked Dipper.

"You are not." Vines shot out from the tree, forming a net that blocked the group from getting to the terminal. "You are supposed to leave the forest. In fact,"

Those same vines wrapped around that emerald-colored computer station. Forming a shell around it, almost.

"I should destroy this _now_ and get it over with already. There is no reason to keep this lying around. It will only make things worse."

"NO NO NO!" Dipper cried. "DON'T DESTROY IT! IF YOU DO, WE'LL-"

Wendy interrupted with "She's not gonna listen! Let's go kick her butt instead!"

For _overkill_ because she apparently did not think that the vine covering was enough, Rose made her three-tree set 'jump' high in the air, landing in front of the transport station.

More vines shot out from the bark of the massive guardian. A far more chaotic pattern, they criss-crossed each other and stabbed the ground, causing cracks to spread through it.

Wendy, not surprisingly, made the first move. And that move was a leap. She jumped to the stable ground _close_ to her and finally got to taking something out of her pack: an axe.

It just _felt right._ Axe on a tree, right?

"You 'prepared' yourself by bringing a _weapon?!_ " Asked Rose, trying to bring her two arm-trees down on Wendy. If 'gently,' and in a non-fatal way. "I knew it! I knew you never trusted me in the first place!"

"Of course not!" Wendy snapped back, after a dodge out from the smack. "It sounds like _YOU_ have trouble trusting _YOUR-_ _ **SELF!**_ "

That last syllable was said with a mighty heave of her axe. Aimed at the side of the 'main,' central tree. It left a chip in Rose's wooden armor, but barely.

"I do not!" The first dean kept trashing the arms of her possession around, using them like gigantic clubs. Wendy could barely dodge them - Dipper, Mabel, and Soos were still working their way out of the pit, trying to avoid getting caught from the vines that felt like they were in all directions. "But I did _not_ prepare to fight physically. I did not bring weapons here! I did not _escalate!_ "

The leaves started shaking wildly - and everyone involved in the battle (and some observers who _weren't,_ not directly anyway) _knew_ that it wasn't the wind.

 _Right_ when the other three members of Team Mystery Shack made it out of the small, vine-infested ditch Rose made, a series of leaves came at them. Razor-sharp, almost. Okay, _paper-_ sharp, but still. The three had to hold their arms up to brace themselves against what was basically an onslaught of papercuts.

"I'M TAKING REFUGE!" Mabel shouted out. She looked behind her and saw that, already, leaves were piling up behind her. Looking like they were no longer within Rose's control. Or that sharp, for that matter.

She lept right in to them, almost laughing.

"Oh hey, cool!" Soos said, jumping in to a pile of discarded leaves himself. "It's like autumn! You know, you should find a way to stick around Gravity Falls in autumn a bit! It's cool! I think I once saw, like, a _robot_ gnome there."

"Kids. Soos." Rose continued. The roots of her tree scurried around to avoid further damage from Wendy, resembling giant legs of a centipede. "I am not trying to _hurt_ you. Only discourage- _prevent_ you from going further. Doing so will be the cause of _real_ pain. Consider these leaves a warning."

"Will you stop acting like you _KNOW EVERYTHING?!_ " Dipper shouted, charging himself ahead, deflecting a few leaves away, landing right next to Wendy. Huffing, though. Both out of anger and from his rush. He wasn't sure which one was the main reason for that.

Spikes of wood appeared from where the two fighters were standing. Springing from the trunk of the tree. Getting Dipper to fall back, and Wendy to stagger.

"I know I don't know everything! But trust me! I know _far_ more about the .GIFfanys than you do! Even you, Soos! And from what I know, I can tell you that going over to them will only end in _MISERY!_ "

She threw the Wire with her vines for extra emphasis, sending it to land on its side in a different, random patch of the forest nearby.

Meanwhile, it was Soos and Mabel's time to get out of the leaf pile. Mabel in particular let out a battle cry, pounding at the tree with her fists-

"Hey, should you really be trying to fight her?" Asked Soos. "I mean, you're the one with the card. You should try keeping it safe."

"It's in a safe place!" Mabel said back. "Trust me! But yeah, I might have gotten caught up in the moment! Now, let's all do this together!"

Soos nodded. "Yes, let's. Or-..." He rubbed his chin. All while the other three kept their fight up: Dipper knocking away the spikes, grabbing a few 'sticks' that resulted from the fight, and swatting off vines, _also_ getting a few (practically useless) hits in. Mabel hooking various branches and swinging from them, delivering (also practically useless) kicks with both feet. Wendy being the only one to cause the most _visible_ damage, axe chipping away at more and more of her.

Wendy was also the first one to notice Soos seemingly standing there.

"SOOS! What are you doing?!"

"Having an inner reflection! Thinking about how this is, like, all traced back to me! And how I should take responsibility!"

Rose actually stopped attacking upon hearing those words.

"What?! No! That's a _terrible_ lesson to take from this! You _could_ say that you made a mistake when it was only the Risen .GIFfany, by herself, and you! Something about trying to use a video game in the place of finding a real relationship... you could spin that in an 'arc.' But this is _not about you anymore!_ This is a **global** issue! It is about _humanity and_ _ **technology!**_ "

Soos shrugged. "I mean, you can take a _different_ sorta lesson from that, I guess. But, uh, here, I'll do both:"

Soos ran around Rose, to the side, heading towards the vine-wrapped Wire. Rose... basically raised an eyebrow of her tree-face, which was difficult to tell as the 'eyebrows' were simple, subtle bumps above the eyes of the wood.

"HEY!" He said. "I'm gonna, like, do the thing with the Wire!"

"You're trying to distract me. For real, this time. Not 'by accident.'"

"Okay, but, don't you think you should check me out?" Realizing what he said, while still running to get to the computer, shook his head. "I mean, not in that way."

"You're not the one with the key card, I heard you. Mabel said she was."

Mabel found her leg caught in a vine. A typical 'loop around the ankle' trap, but linked to the base of Rose's tree. Getting a "Woah!" from her, she was flipped over on her back. Another vine went to the image of the shaking hands on Mabel's sweater, which, as it turned out, functioned as an extra pocket.

The vine took the card key from that pocket.

"Your sweater design does not make that much sense." Rose commented. "Shaking hands usually do not hold an object. If that was a picture of a hand by itself, it would make more sense."

Mabel shrugged. "Sometimes I just like giving my sweaters a little extra _thing,_ you know. Even if it doesn't fit the picture."

"Look, I have the card now, see?" Rose asked.

"Yeah- _oof!_ " Soos bumped his knee against the toppled terminal. "But, like... uh... what if I, like, do my fixing stuff on it?"

"...You're bluffing."

Another vine wrapped around _Soos's_ leg, tripping him. Sending him falling face-first on the ground.

"Stop this." Rose said. "I have the card back, I have half of you captured, it's over. As for the other half, capturing them will not be a problem."

"Uh, well, yes it will. Because you see..."

Said 'other half' had since gotten within whispering range, backing up as vines and wooden spikes started creeping up on them. Dipper held up the pile of wood that he managed to get from the spike attack towards Wendy, but did not move his gaze at all.

"...Can you light this? Like, now?" He whispered.

In a considerably less-soft voice, Wendy replied: " _What_ kind of a 'cool teen' do think I am, exactly?"

"Oh, I was thinking about your lumberjack skills and how you live out-"

She already torched the pile with a lighter. Rose _finally_ looked at the two.

"I can also start a fire _that way,_ too." Wendy said. At regular volume. Dipper, not moving anything else, dropped the pile of wood at the base of the tree before the dean could react. Of course, it caught on the bottom of the tree guardian's tank trunk, lighting it. Soos clasped his hands on his mouth and nose the _monent_ that started. "But starting a fire with nothing but sticks would have taken _forever._ I just wanted to know why you thought I could light a fire."

Rose screamed, but Wendy sighed. The former tried to swat it out with her wooden branches, only to catch _those_ on fire as well. The latter, on the other hand, said "Thank you for rambling _again._ I would have lit you before, but I needed to get _close._ And I needed some fuel, thanks for that Dip."

"THIS ISN'T FUNNY!" Rose screamed, the blaze spreading across her. All of her leaves reddened before flaring in to nothing, wood quickly blackening. " _IF THIS SPREADS TO THE REST OF THE FOREST-_ "

It spread to the rest of the forest. Across treetops, mainly. Because the top of her main 'body' tree had basically become a gigantic head of flame that channelled on to the rest of the wood.

Green sparks began to appear all over Rose.

Soos finally spoke up, his hands still over his face. "Oh _no no no no no_ will you be okay?! I- I didn't want you to get set on fire! I- I didn't even want _.GIFfany_ to be on that pizza-fire, it's-"

"I'M FINE!" Rose cried "WATCH!"

Right as the wood started cracking from the heat, a large concentration of green electricity appeared between the eyes, and from there, Rose shot out. Looking almost completely unharmed.

"Even if my main body was on fire, _these_ have been given an _extra_ heat resistance thanks to the dark magic used to make them! Because a _certain someone_ started this whole mess by burning a copy!"

She unintentionally gave them proof when a few stray embers fell on her face. They spread to her leaf dress and burnt off parts of it - Rose casually brushed it all off. By the end of it, she really had more of a skimpy leaf bikini on. If even that.

"Huh." Said Soos. "'Certain someone,' eh? Well, that's some interesting lore, I wonder who-" He looked offended. "Wait a minute! You're not pinning the .GIFocalypse on me, right?! I thought you just told me _not_ to do that! I'm getting mixed signals here!"

Ignoring Soos completely, she threw her hands towards the blaze and looked out in the distance - copies, watching from behind the trees. Out of context, they would look like some sort of mystical dryads or something along those lines watching their own sacred forest burn.

"WHY AREN'T YOU PUTTING THIS OUT?!" Rose asked. "IT'S MY WEAPON! MY MAIN POSSESSION! And the rest of the forest, and this could spread to the town too if we're not careful, or even be a huge wildfire- but _MY WEAPON!_ "

One of the copies stepped out and folded her arms. "But we are not _authorized_ to do that without your explicit high-ranking. Putting out fires is too 'self-defense-y' for you."

"STOP TRYING TO BE SMARTA-"

That copy held out a set of stapled (with a wooden staple) sheets showing the rules.

It only consisted of three pages. But basically, those were some _serious_ three pages. Rose seemed to be able to read the tiny text just by leaning in.

"Oh." She said. "You are right. Why did I even right that in the first place? Well, rule overturned! Help me put this out!"

Nothing else happened.

With one loud, large flare, the flames suddenly jumped in quantity. Which prompted Rose to say the following:

" _Please!_ "

Rose went running, and a small handful of her other copies followed after her.

So, apparently, there was a small shack containing things just in case of a disaster such as that. Filled with buckets, what seemed like flame-retardant blankets, and...

Some weird-looking tools. None of the Mystery Shack crew could even _think_ as to _what_ they were used for. Like... guns and swords? But... with _way_ too many buttons for guns and swords. A number of them were either platinum-white or jet-black, but others were the same emerald green as Rose's Wire.

Sadly, the 'nearest' body of water was far away from the world tree. Also, there were more .GIFfany (or, Rose?) instances than there were buckets, resulting in a crowded dash.

"HEY!" A Manotaur shouted. "You _specifically_ said no fires!"

"I know, I know!" Rose shouted back, just as the copies got in to a line. The four humans were mixed in as well, although they were noticeably cramped in compared to the rest of the line. As if the other AIs knew exactly where to go, while the band of four were shoving themselves in to some pre-determined list. "But this wasn't caused by me! It was caused by _them!_ The humans! Look, we're all working together to clean this up!"

"For the record, I'm only doing this for guys like you." Dipper said to the bulky bull man. "Because people, you know, live here. And wildfires are _bad._ "

"Also," Commented Wendy, "'thank you,' Rose, for putting us under the bus like that."

"I know, I know," the first dean said with some coughs, handing another filled bucket to another copy, "you can tell me how terrible I am _after_ we get rid of all of this."

* * *

"So the fire's out now." Dipper said.

Yep. Extinguished. It was a quick process, involving buckets being carried over. With Rose using her powers to levitate the wood (if they were _metal,_ any of the copies could use them, but alas, Rose went with wood) for an added, extra help.

"Since we helped you, the least you could do is let us take the Wire."

Rose sighed. "I was going to let you use it anyway. You... you really made me look and _feel_ like an idiot back there. I _could_ have enlisted the entire army to fry you - which, by the way, is what the other deans still might do - but I thought it would 'give us a better image' if I didn't, and... yeah... Go ahead. Let me just..."

Green sparks appeared around her. _And_ around the Wire. With that, it was lifted, sent floating through the air, and planted at the exact same spot it used to be. The plants were also unraveled from around it.

"Ironically, the 'Wires' are wireless." Rose explained. "So, removing it from the base will still let you use it. Just to let you know, that ring around the base is how far the boundary of what gets sent through will go. It scans based on biology, and then forms the body shape from there. If you drop something, it won't go with you. Anyway, go. I need to re-evaluate."

"Re-evaluate what?" Asked Dipper.

"Everything.

"The point is, I won't stop you. You beat me in combat, I thought I had the perfect weapon from finding the perfect tree. I guess - I..."

A quintet of Manotaurs walked by, all of whom had bags larger than they were, resembling bulky, muscular arms.

"You can stop evacuating, the fire's out." Rose explained.

One of them barely moved his eyes to look at her. "The forest is still _burnt_ there."

"I know, I know, I-"

"It's _PERFECT_ for us! Can we have that as our own little section?"

"I don't know, I'm not sure how I feel about making any part of the forest outside of our designated resting spots in to places that take gues-"

He reached in his bag and dropped a large sack of jewels. And gold.

"HOLY SH-" Rose clasped her hands on her mouth.

"I'll pay rent." Said the Manotaur.

Rose stared at the money bag for a while. Then, with her eyes still wide open, she looked at him. "You're in. I have no idea what I will do with this money - in fact, money itself may soon be outdated by the end of the year. But I _want it._ "

She turned her attention towards the four humans, who were already well-within the 'safety radius' of the green Wire.

"Okay, we'll just _peek_ on the next dean." Wendy said. "Maybe say 'what's up.' I packed enough for that. After that, we'll come back and get whatever we need. Rose, will you help us?"

Rose's mouth twitched. Like she was trying to fight back an expression. "I'm sorry, I will help later, but for now, I have a _lot_ of things to sort out. Political things. With the residents of the forest and my other copies What I can tell you right now is that Domain 2 is Dean Kathody's domain. She is a lucky 'real enemy' to fight first, because you should be safe unless you specifically say that you want to fight her. Just don't let her trick you in to doing that. I will fill you in later.

"But I _can_ give you some tools to help with your adventure. Now, my students, professors, staff et al are going to _hate_ me for this, but:"

She stuck an arm out. And a series of blue, digital squares appeared in front of her - resembling an inventory screen-

Oh, right. In white letters were the words 'INVENTORY.' They had a _series_ of advanced, complex tools in a variety of colors within them,

Rose was right. The other copies scowled at that. "HEY!" Liatris in particular shouted. "You said no inventories! That was a way of 'protesting!'"

" _I lied._ " Rose said as she scrolled through them. She seemed to land on a slot with a huge cluster of what looked like phones. Specifically, 288 - as indicated by the number at the bottom-right corner. "The important thing is that I feel bad about it _now._ "

Turning her attention to the Shack group, she walked over towards them - her Inventory following her. She calmly reached in to the box with phones and pulled out four of them, tossing them to the group. The number on the box went down to 284.

"Here! These are automatically linked to our very coding!" Rose explained. "We can _somewhat_ communicate with each other from our psychic transfer, now especially thanks to this nifty phone system Dove has set up, but for our intended players, you can communicate with super-phones! .GIFfany _really_ wanted them to be cutsey flip-phones of the past, back around the year _Romance Academy 7_ was made, but Dove and I told her, no, this should be more modern."

"'Dove _and I?!_ '" Asked Lily. "I thought you of all people would be _protesting_ the modern design!"

"Again, I lied, I'm sorry about that." Rose nodded, tossing the group the phones. "Anyway, you will have to actually 'earn' the ability to talk to a dean. You cannot just punch in their name. They will have you on 'block' by default. And they can block numbers whenever they want. Only my 'number' is on there right now. If you can _somehow_ find another copy willing to talk to you... well, you can get her or his help."

"Cool!" Said Mabel. "I've always wanted a future-phone! Then one comes out, and I get it, and then I'm like, 'well now it's a _now_ phone.'"

"Yeah," added Wendy, "watch this become outdated in, like, two weeks."

"You joke, but we are developing in an exponential curve. The chance of a singularity is very real." Rose said that in a sort of monotone that the group only previously heard through 'Risen's' dialogue when Soos first bought her, _before_ any of that complex 'army of copies' stuff kicked in.

"So, right, finally, weapons."

She 'scrolled' around again and-

Sticks.

A square of sticks.

 _Exactly_ four of them, which she tossed.

"...No." Said Dipper. "These are just sticks. Can't we have some of those bigger, better-looking tools?"

"I still want this to be nonlethal, so no." Rose replied.

"What about that one that looks like a watering can?" Asked Wendy. "I mean, I'm not saying I want to sprinkle little bits of water on the copies, but is _that-_ "

"Yes, yes it is. But trust me. The sticks have a power to them. And the sticks and the phones are all I can give you."

Dipper looked like he was about to say something, but Soos put a hand on his shoulder.

"I think we can trust her now!" He said. "I mean, she's all self-deprecating-y. That's usually a sign that the bad guy's turned around."

It took him a moment, but Dipper eventually put his head down and agreed.

Smirking, Wendy whipped the key card out and put it in to the slot. Where it was read and scanned with green light.

Rose's face twitched again, but she finally settled on a sly, cocky grin as a transparent yellow forcefield appeared, reaching the exact marked boundaries of the Wire. Wireframe outlines of each of the four were made as electric lines dotted across the spherical forcefield.

"Oh, one last detail." She said. "The trips? The key cards can only take you _to_ the domain marked, by color. There is no way to, say, go back to the one you just came from, unless you have a card from there. In other words:

"I just tricked you in to going on a one-way trip."

They all looked back at her.

"Wait, what?!" Asked Dipper. "Is there still time to get out of here?! I need to-"

He started to run, but all that really accomplished was his hat flying off of him.

The entire sphere went in, and that hat was the only remaining part of any of them to remain in where the bubble used to be. Everything else went in the machine, and then shot out of the loose wire. In a yellow light, heading right towards the first floating island.

Rose turned up to that light and began to laugh.

"Well," she said, "if you wanted to go up there _that badly..._ "

 **Run: .GIFocalypse**

 **(Rebooted)**

 **End of the Early Game**

* * *

 **Closing AN:**

Happy fifth birthday, .GIFfany and Melody's debut episode.

Minor tweaks will almost certainly be coming to this chapter within the week. (Otherwise I'll just keep putting it off, even after publishing future chapters.) I was kind of rushing this to get this out on the anniversary, even though I was working on it a bit prior. The main reason why is because I was expecting to start the last chapter of _Total Zeksmit Plains_ at the beginning of the year - which I _did,_ so the following should speak volumes: - then finish it, and _then_ move this up to my next priority, but here's the thing. The year's almost 3/4ths over and I'm _still..._ I'm almost done with that but it's coming along at an extremely slow pace. Once that garbage is out of the way, I'd want to work on both this and _Bl:oodswap_ (mostly I just want to nuke what I've got and start over, the story as it stands right now is _extremely_ embarassing and stupid. Yes, it's supposed to have a stupid premise, but it's not "stupid" in the way I want it to be), but while I'm still dealing with that thing, I only want to work on one at a time.

Tomorrow I'll work on one of these: Chapter 2 Part 1 of this, or the redone Chapter 1 of _Bl:oodswap_. It depends on exactly **how** embarassed I am on the original BS vs how enthusiastic I am towards continuing. I feel pretty strongly on both fronts. Until then, I'll take my "several color-coded copies of an originally-minor character" thing on hold for a bit while I just get through my self-made daily "quota" for other stories (mostly dumb harem comedies on Fictionpress), because in this one day I wrote the entirety of this dumb note and edited this chapter from the Rose fight onwards. Yesterday, I edited/looked over the story from the beginning of this chapter to the Rose fight.

Without getting in to spoilers related to the old version, one of the changes I think might be "noteworthy" is establishing .GIFfinum (also, renaming it) right off the bat, instead of... what, like, Domain 5? And not actually _showing_ a copy make it until **Domain 11?** Even though .GIFfinum is, at best, world building, I still thought it would be better to have it show up right away.

Name trivia: "Liatris" is named after the "blazing star," I just Googled something along the lines of flowers in hot climates and thought that was cool enough of a name to use. "Acmella" from the "electric daisy." And, most obviously of the three, "Lily" is from "water lily." I wanted a "fire/electricity/water" trio of names that were still flower themed. Because, in case you are unaware of this painfully neglected Nintendo franchise that makes up my current username here, those three together are a _Pikmin_ reference. ...You might want to save this paragraph, I might (but probably won't) delete it from the story itself, I'm not sure how much giving away the reference/name meaning would... "mess with" the flow of even a closing author's note. What I _will_ say is to not be surprised if the other domains have similar explanations.

Oh yeah, and that and the thing about Domains 5 and 11 kinda give away that the gang's going to all those floating islands up there, right? Well, shouldn't that be a given? Personally, I think it would be **less** interesting if "something bad happened" and their trip from domain to domain went off the rails. But that's only because I already know that the other deans won't be simple monsters of the week.

Be sure to check in for the next weeks, I'll finally reply to the review in the old version (in the last chapter, not in this one) and I'll probably throw up a different ending scene!


End file.
